The Forests of the Night

J P S Brown
1974

This book is for Rafael Rosa
The Onza

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could hoist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And waterd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

"The Tyger,"
by William Blake

INTRODUCTION

THE FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
J.P.S. BROWN

Over a period of two generations I rode the horseshoe trails into the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico with my partner Rafael Russo to buy cattle. His hacienda was our headquarters and we bought the cattle from his neighbors in the municipality of Chinipas, Chihuahua. Russo's vaqueros lived on his ranches with their families and worked al partido, for wages and a share of the cheeses, and calf, bean, and corn crops the ranches produced. Russo and l lived with those families during the work. Every evening, I recorded the stories of the day in calendar notebooks that fit in a chaps pocket.

I came to know the crews and their families well and saw their sons and grandsons grow to join us in the work. I started my first book Jim Kane four years after I began the journals. Twelve years later I began this book, The Forests of the Night. Martinillo the hunter depicted in this book was a Russo vaquero in his middle 50s when I met him. He became my good friend. The story that he and his companions told about his ordeal with a jaguar who spoiled on his own power became the foundation for this book. His story is true, but I was not with him when it happened, so I filled the pages of this book with the truth of my notebooks.

In the summer of 1971, I began to write this book at Kier Byerley's beach cottage on the Sea of Cortez at Camauiroa in southern Sonora. Kier was my model for Milligan in the book. The story took such a hold on me that one minute after I started writing it I found that I could not do anything else. My family and partners sent out search parties for me before I left Camauiroa. In the fall I had to stop work on it to ship cattle to the U.S. I didn't try to get back to it until after the cattle crossed and I was able to return to my home in Arizona.

Because of the hold that Forests had on me I put out an inordinate amount of physical and mental labor on it. In those days I wrote first drafts in longhand and subsequent drafts on a portable typewriter. In the mornings, for exercise, I tried to get outside to cut fireplace wood and haul it in on my shoulder or a toboggan. The story would not allow me to leave it for more than two hours. Soon, I had to quit the woodcutting. I didn't stop work on the manuscript except to eat and sleep and could not sleep for more than two hours at a time. No matter how exhausted I was when I went to bed at a normal hour, the story always woke me at 2 a.m. I became the good horse that was being worked to death. I've always done words as a contribution to something I don't understand. It's too much hard work to do for myself. I'd be a fool to do it for myself. I like cowboying better. Writing takes too big of a hold on me, holds me down too long at a time and the pay is low and scarce. Cowboying has not paid near enough, either, but even that work has paid better than words have. At least, cowboying is fun and good for the constitution, most of the time.

My fiction is based on experience and evolves through years of cogitation. I don't try to write the story until the original idea becomes a full grown truth that kicks at my heart to get out. Forests required 12 years of cogitation before I began the first paragraph, but I never stopped writing again until I finished it. At work in my home in Arizona, I didn't notice the coming and going of Thanksgiving or Christmas of 1971. I know I ate and slept, but I don't remember any of it.

At sunup on New Years day, for the first time since I had returned home, I noticed that my wife and kids made noise. I learned to write in the city room of the El Paso Herald-Post, a daily newspaper. A reporter writes thousands of words every day no matter what else happens around him. If he had to wait for inspiration, or for writer's block to clear away, or for everybody around him to be quiet, he couldn't hold his job.

However, that New Years Day, the sounds of my family all of a sudden drove me into a frenzy. I savaged my wife and kids, got in my airplane and flew to Navojoa, Sonora. I sent the airplane back home to cut all responsible ties and drove to San Bernardo at the foot of the Sierra Madre, then rode horseback seventeen hours to Kier Byerley's Rancho Quemado on the high, spiny border between Chihuahua and Sonora. Kier's caretaker Lico and his wife saw to my needs while I worked night and day on the manuscript. I finished the handwritten first draft in a month. I carried the manuscript in a black, cardboard satchel back to Navojoa, got in touch with my family, and began to run and play in celebration. My family contacted Charley Jones, another border cattle trader who partnered with me and needed my help to cross the border at Douglas, Arizona with another bunch of cattle . He flew the airplane back to Navojoa, joined my celebration for awhile, then flew us back to Douglas.

I did not let go of the black satchel, even when half a dozen friends joined us and we ran and played through every joint in Douglas and Agua Prieta. I felt so good about the book that every now and then I had to open it up and read parts of it to myself. Any part was just line.

Charley stayed two or three days, then flew home to take care of the business of our cattle. Ten days went by and one morning I woke up in my room in the Gadsden Hotel to read from the manuscript and couldn't find it. I was having too much fun to worry about it, but when Charley returned, I mentioned that I'd lost it. He did not take the news as lightly as I reported it. He had taken breaks in our running and playing to read it and it had hooked him. The only way I could get him out of the room after he started reading it had been to put it back in the satchel and head for the corrals or the saloons.

"We have to find it, Joe," Charley said. "Where were you the last time you looked in the satchel?"

"You know, Charley, I was going to ask you about that."

"You still had it when I left."

"Well, see, that narrows it down. When did you leave?"

"Ten days ago."

"There you have it. All we have to do is find out where I've been for the last ten days, a fact well known to everybody in this town, and we'll find it."

"I'll round up the people who ran with us to look for it, but what if we don't find it? What are you going to do?"

"Hell, I'll write another'n," I said.

Charley left me at the B and P Palace Bar and rounded up Bill Brown, John Maher, Harry McRory, Betty Hunt and Arnoldo the Gadsden bartender and searched. I didn't go. In my celebratory state I thought I had better things to do than worry about lost words. I was not celebrating the finish of a first draft of a new book. I celebrated because I could now go home to my noble family which still loved me enough to take me back, sleep a whole night through, and ease my brain with cowboying again. I'd given it all up for too long and would probably never be able to sell the story, anyway. If it was lost I could write another one that was just as good as soon as I was ready to risk my life again, so I felt no urgent need to leave a comfortable stool in a fine old bar and get anxious about it.

Charley and my other friends looked for the satchel in every corner of every bar and restaurant, talked to every waiter and bartender, waitress and musician who had seen me and some who had not, but found nothing.

That evening the gang found me again in the B and P. Charley was ringing his tail, so I cautioned him against turning literary on us. After all, no bunch of words that I could write would ever make anyone want to keep me for a pet. I thought I had worked on Forests with all my might until I had it where I wanted it, but I didn't want anyone to think it was so precious they had to find it or die. Charley laughed with me about that, but didn't sit down with us.

The B and P had a pool room in the back. Charley asked me if I had played pool that week. I couldn't remember. I think because he had become so ringy he needed to keep moving, he walked back to the pool room.

After awhile he came up behind me and reached over my head with the satchel in both hands and laid it in front of me on the bar. Then he sat down and joined the celebration as though he had just saved the very most deathless prose of all time from perdition.

A lot of good people who know literature like this book. It has been a special favorite of academics. All kinds of symbolism has been found in it, all attributed to the writer. However, now that everyone knows the story of its birth, and how it was abandoned like a foundling in the trash bin of a saloon, maybe people will finally know once and for all that it is only what it is, a story surrounded by a lot of other stories about hard living.

I believe that nature governs the behavior of all species, no matter how they make a living. The jaguar kills and eats in his way and the man in his way, whether as an individual or a nation, nobly or ignominiously. They are measured by the way they use their nature and it's natural to use it any way they can. This story came as naturally to the cowboy who wrote it as the storied men and animals lived it, and as the cowboy says, "That's all they are to it."

1

The young duck dove under the surface of the pool as the hawk swooped at his head. The duck was tired. He could not hide from hawk eyes in the clear pool. The hawk hovered confidently, following him.

A full-grown jaguar stopped at the edge of the stream to watch them, his eyes bracing, still, peculating over his chances for a meal. The hawk dove again, made a snatching splash, clung a moment and then beat his wings to keep from settling in the water. He caught the air and flew again to rest and wait. The jaguar walked across the stream cooling his feet and lapping a drink as he moved. His business was the unhurried pursuit of three small deer who had watered at the pool that morning. He broke into a relaxed lope. He warmed and began to function with more efficiency and control. Soon he was racing after the deer with every faculty at its keenest; without overrunning the track or scent he caught each instant in his direction. He ran quietly, listening for the deer. He slowed when he heard them close ahead. He was sure how far ahead they were. He could not make a mistake so serious that his prey would get away. He had made sure his scent was frightening the deer. He controlled their flight when they were afraid. He was certain to kill one of the three. This would be no slow and careful stalking, but a quick dispatch of the life he needed. He did not concern himself at all with his prey's talent for escape. He circled the deer and went high to wait on a boulder over the track they were taking to escape him. As they approached him, two looked up and saw him and immediately knew what he was. They wheeled and fled in separate directions. The youngest and smallest was a doe close between them, depending on her older companions for safety. When they sprang away she raised her head to see the cause of their scattering. She saw her enemy falling to take her last moment of life. His weight caught her on the shoulders and crumbled her legs. He took her in his embrace and held her. He paused, raised his head and looked around. He made a low sound of pleasure, almost of affection, for the doe. The doe reached impotently with her front feet to raise herself. The jaguar viciously made her be still. He licked her neck and ears. He licked her eyes. His odor made her frantic again. He trapped her throat in his jaws and jerked it out with a shake of his big head. While she was dying he carefully drank at the fountain of her blood, and when she was still he licked her neck and ears, nose and eyes again. He took her neck in his jaws and carried her up to a shelter of rock beneath a precipice where he could see all avenues to the spot. He feasted on her there.

A man had seen the drama of the hawk, the duck and the jaguar. He had seen the jungle move in the form of the jaguar. When the animal had become distinguishable, all the brilliance of the forest concentrated in him. The man was sitting high on the top of a cliff in the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico in the dark shade of an alien tree. He had been waiting for afternoon shade to cover the face of the cliff so he could climb down and pluck an enjambre, a wild beehive, from the face. The time was spring and the hives were full of honey, though the Sierra was dry. He did not see the jaguar catch the doe. He did not see the hawk fly away with the duck. He was not moved by their business. He felt akin to all who made their living in the Sierra. Tienen dererho, they have a right to do what they do, he felt.

The man was tall and wiry. He was strong. He tied tire treads on the soles of his feet with leather thongs that cost him more than he could afford. These huaraches were all the protection he had ever used or needed for getting from one place to another. His name was Adán Martinillo and few people in the world knew him. He did not care or worry about being known by anyone. He was a calm man who waited, watched, and hoped for dark, high, heavy clouds to come, day or night, early or late, with rain. He was a man who was a friend of lightning, friend of the torrent and the flood, and an enemy of death. He was friend to beasts and growing corn. He was enemy to hunger, cruelty, devastation, wasted fat, oil, and wood, to raucous women and wooing.

He built a fire in the shade of the aliso when the sun had turned to a cooler angle and was shining flatly over the top of the mountain. He put the ends of green aliso branches into the edge of the fire and the soft, powdery scale of the bark caught and began to smoke a thick white smoke. He bundled the branches when the ends were in ember. He tied his reata, his rawhide lariat, to the cool end of the bundle and lowered it over the face of the precipice to the enjambre. He squatted on the lip of the cliff and let the smoking bundle swing under the hive. He smiled. The loaf of hive was large enough to hold a kilo of honey. When the fierce black bees began to swarm from the hive, he sat back out of sight of them and waited for the bees to become discouraged and leave the hive or to become drunk with smoke so they would not be inclined to sting. He did not like their stings. He had always been susceptible to stinging bees. Some men of these mountains did not need smoke. These men took a hive and walked home eating honey while the bees were still leaving the hive and angrily stinging.

He saw the bees had scattered crazily away from the hive in self-preservation and were not returning. He coiled his reata  and smothered the bundle of coals. He wrapped the reata around the trunk of the aliso and secured it. He laid a long, thick pole of aliso along the brink of the cliff so rock would not cut the reata. The scale of the bark on the log was slick as talcum. He straddled the reata, wrapped it across his chest and over a shoulder, and backed off the cliff, letting the reata slide through one hand. He lay the reata across the pole for his descent. The thin, four-strand, braided rawhide of the reata bit into the side of his neck. He lowered himself slowly, painfully, for the cliff was sheer. He kept his feet braced against the face and leaned against the reata. When he reached the hive he threw half hitches over the reata in front of him and tied himself to the face. He picked the enjambre carefully from the face so the feltlike hive would not crumble. The hive was larger than it had appeared to be from fifty feet above. The flimsy house was barely able to contain the honey once he had detached it from the rock and changed its balance. He rested the hive in a flour sack and tied the loose top of the sack to his belt. He swung to a place on the face which provided him with foot- and handholds for his ascent. The reata slipped across the pole on the brink without catching or burning. He caught his holds and climbed quickly to the top.

The man walked away from the shade of the aliso toward his home. He decided he would use the rest of the afternoon to work on the trinchera, the rock wall he was building on the pasture around his house. He could be near his wife the rest of the afternoon. He looked at the sky and shook his head. He had been watching clouds build in the east when he had been distracted by the hawk and the jaguar on their relentless business. He had hoped for lightning and the signs of torment which would have meant rain and life to the Sierra Madre. Now he saw the clouds had proven to be small, coquettish, flirting clouds with no weight and no more promise.

His wife Lucrecia was less than an hour away from him. Now, there was a coquettish torment. She was probably standing by her kitchen window, working and angrily watching for him. Lucrecia had already given him four children, so he felt she had a right to be angry any time she pleased. For a month she had refused to sleep with him. He laughed to himself. "No!" she growled when he bunched himself for her. "You are repugnant to me!" She was still a girl. What could he do about that? He could only kiss her from across the room, pursing and opening his lips to hit the only nerve he could touch in her these days. Those black eyes under those black brows of hers shone with anger for him as they at times shone softly with love or mirth when she thought he wasn't looking. Lucrecia wasn't always angry. Only when he bunched himself for her.

She had black hair, shiny with health. She was young, fresh, and beautiful to him, whether she watched him angrily or fondly. Under her black hair she wore golden earrings that flashed against her rosy face. If Adán dared, she opposed. She was a girl. She slept with great ease no matter how unquiet Adán might feel at bedtime. She slept still, like a child, thank God. She was so much a girl she didn't know how to love him yet; a man forty years old, a girl twenty and bearing children. She still put paint on her fingernails at times, though. Why did she do that if she was angry with him?

Adán's blunt brown toes stepped surely on the trail to home. He did not have to look down and worry about thorn or rock and his steps were as sure in darkness as they were by day. The Sierra was his country and he knew every side of every rock and tree by the trails. He turned a corner on the trail high over the canyon of Arroyo Hondo and he came upon his friend Manuel Espinoza. Manuelito was sitting beside the trail holding the lead rope of his burro. The burro was old. His ears lay broken on his head. His ears had been chewed by other burros so that they were broken in half and turned down at sharp angles and now served as shades for his eyes.

Manuelito Espinoza could now be called an anciano, an ancient. Not even he knew how old he was, as he knew of no record of his birth. He was called an ancianito, a little ancient one. He was small and slight and as aboriginal as the ancients who had lived naked in the caves of the region. The serranos, natives of the Sierra Madre, knew of these people because many caves still contained the mummified remains of them.

Like most serranos, Manuelito walked everywhere he went if he was to go at all. Unlike most serranos, his walk was not graceful and light. He was best at walking at night because darkness hid from him distractions of sight. He talked to himself constantly as he conned himself through the mountains, and not all the instruction he gave himself directed him on the heading he wanted. The purpose of his existence was very clear to him, but the tarea, the work he was to do on any day, was not ever clear to him from moment to moment. He spent his days arguing, coaxing, explaining, and conning himself toward righting his course as he could see it on each day of his existence.

Manuelito had a boyish face with a pug nose which was always irrigating his upper lip as it pumped and snuffed; a heavy black brow over his deep-set eyes; a black stubble of beard with no grey in it, which never grew out into a full beard. He wore any clothes anyone else did not want. He never washed or bathed because he never remembered the need for cleanliness. He was addicted to tobacco and alcohol and never had money to buy any.

His ultimate reason for existence was the Juan Vogel family, absentee owners of the Avena ranch. He was a cousin to the family and did not consider himself a servant but a partner, and he was paid accordingly. He was paid nothing. Once in a while he was given something of value to him which had ceased to be of value to the Vogel family.

Manuelito's immediate reason for existence, which pressed him often into confusion, was his charge of the Juan Vogel hacienda burros and his duties to Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela, the caretaker. The two old men called each other hermanito, little brother. Don Panchito was known to be one hundred and ten years old. He was not able to do much more than make Manuelito's existence a joy at times and a travail most of the time. This was the reason Manuelito was feeling lonesome and trastaviado at the moment Adán Martinillo encountered him on the trail to Las Animas, Adán's home. He had again lost the trail and train of his existence.

"Hola, Manuelito," Adán greeted him. "What's keeping you out of the shade this time of day?"

"I am disconsolate," said Manuelito. "My burro has broken the eggs."

Adán saw that yokes and whites of eggs were streaming from boxes strapped over the aparejo, the burro's packsaddle. Adán studied the situation. "Surely not all of your eggs are broken. Where were you taking them?"

"I started with a hundred eggs to San Bernardo and they broke. I don't know what I'm going to do. My burro stumbles and falls. He is sad and sickly."

"Hunger is a bad sickness." Adán looked inside the boxes. The eggs had been packed in dry grass. "You might have used chicory leaves to cushion the eggs and given the grass to the burro with better luck," he said. "San Bernardo is a day and a half away and the burro is finished. Let's lead him to Las Animas. We'll feed him corn and tasol, the corn fodder, while you have coffee. We'll count the surviving eggs and decide what to do."

The two men led the staggering burro down the trail into the canyon of Arroyo Hondo. Large loro parrots flew away from them, scolding them in one breath, peeping lovingly to one another in the next. The men followed them to Adán's house at Las Animas. They walked into the patio of Las Animas at dark. Adán saw his wife's stern young face in the lamplight of the kitchen. She did not smile at him. She saw he was arriving once more with some poor unfortunate who needed his help. Her hands did the work of preparing coffee. She used this expressionless face to castigate the Martinillo when he had been gone all day and was returning accompanied by shambling burros and poor, simple, unwashed, unshaven, and uncared-for old men. She did not mind taking care of them. She knew she had no better business to attend to. She only acted impassive and uncaring when she was vexed with the Martinillo. At this moment she was not angry. She had been listening to her battery radio and dancing slightly, barely moving as she swaggered and swayed her shoulders and twisted her head with female preening to the music. She had turned off the radio to keep the Martinillo from knowing she was happy. While she watched him coming she had put on her gold earrings. Martinillo was good to her and her boys. Lucrecia loved him, but one month ago he had become drunk on lechuguilla, the mezcal of that region. She had kept him away and called him gross, repugnant, slobbery, and indecisive. Now she was relenting but holding out against him as long as she could because the longer she held out the more he became attentive and considerate.

Lucrecia smiled at Manuelito when she served him coffee. She served her husband sternly at first and then with a smile in her eyes that spread to her lips. He pursed his lips to kiss her from across the table. She pursed hers to return it. He looked happy and she began to caress him mirthfully with her eyes, watching every glance of his and intercepting it for herself. As she watched him attend to the poor, neglected Manuelito she felt a nervy passion that made her so weak she thought she might have to sit down.

"Your coffee is good. Your little coffee, Señora. The cafecito. Would you have a little cigarette?" Manuelito said. "I have not smoked today. Do you still smoke? I still do and would like to do so now."

Adán watched Lucrecia go to her cupboard and take out a can of home-grown tobacco and a sheaf of corn leaves. He watched her carry them in her rosy hands with his gold ring on one and his golden bracelets on the wrist of the other; gold warmed on her flesh, gold warmed with the heat that was good for him.

Manuelito tore away a corn leaf from the bundle. He found his tin-bladed knife, the kind of knife children in towns use for playthings, and carved the leaf into a neat rectangle. He moistened the leaf with his tongue. He examined it for flaws. He smoothed his spittle on it and stretched it gently, trying it for strength and evenness of fiber. He pinched the finest grains of tobacco out of the can and sprinkled them onto the leaf. He made an even row of tobacco, rolled it inside the leaf, and folded the end. He lighted the cigarette on the fire of the hearth. He sat down, puffing on the tobacco. "I am, as usual, disconsolate," he said.

"Why not? You've suffered another tragedy today, Manuelito. Anyone would feel discouraged," Adán said. He winked and kissed at Lucrecia.

"No!" she said, turning away, the coquette again.

Manuelito snuffed his wet nose. "Yes, and the patrón does not come to see us, our patrón, Vogel. The prevention of hunger, rain does not come either. My burro fell and hurt us all. My little brother, Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela, will be disappointed."

"We'll remedy what we can after you've rested awhile," Adán said.

"Don Panchito thinks I should be nearing San Bernardo by now. He doesn't know I'm sitting here comfortably with all our eggs broken."

"And what must be done, Adán?" Lucrecia demanded.

Adán went outside to the burro. He unlashed the boxes and lowered them to the ground. He picked through them and sorted away the eggs which had not been broken. Manuelito watched disconsolately. He smoked. Adán counted the whole eggs.

"You have thirty-one eggs, Manuelito," he said. "I don't see any use in making the journey to San Bernardo for thirty-one eggs and six pesos. You could have gone for one hundred eggs and twenty pesos."

"And I could have returned with coffee and sugar. Now what can I do? Now trastaviado?"

Adán squatted and looked thoughtfully at the face of Manuelito. Lucrecia, concerned for the old man, the eggs, and the burro, filled the coffee cups again.

"I have two culecas, setting hens," Adán said finally.

"One has three eggs, another has only two eggs. If you would be in accord, we could give these eggs to my hens. You'll have them back when the chicks are hatched and rustling for themselves."

"This would seem to be the most indicated plan to follow," Manuelito said. "I should, nevertheless, discuss the matter with my hermanito, Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela. He always knows what is best to do after I have become trastaviado."

"If the eggs were mine, I wouldn't traffic them all the way back to Avena to discuss the matter with Don Panchito. I'm sure he would agree with me. I'll take care of the eggs and the sick burro for you. And you can take my burro back to Avena to consult with Don Panchito."

"You will, Adán?"

"Count on me, Manuelito. They'll be safe. I'll start the cure for your burro. I have plenty of corn and tasol to fill him with and I only have the mare, the filly, and the toro buey, my work bull, to feed until the rains begin, if they ever begin."

"They will, with the help of God," sighed Manuelito.

"With God's favor," echoed Lucrecia. "Here come the boys with the toro buey. "

Adán stood up and saw the black bull coming. The bull ambled gently. He was being led by Adancito, the oldest son. His three brothers were riding the bull. The youngest, the güero, the blond and blue-eyed one, was in front. He was naked. He was potbellied and imperious on the bull. He was called the Governor by his family. The second son, the prieto, the dark one, was riding in the middle. He became mute among his calling, laughing brothers when he saw Manuelito. He was nicknamed Memín by his family, after a Negro comic strip character. Rolando rode in back. He was cocky, full of himself, and adventurous. He held the tail of the toro buey over his shoulder, pulling on it like a rudder to direct their progress and trying it as an accelerator to keep the toro buey lively. The bull walked carefully as though he cared if they fell off. Adancito had gone to the Puerto de las Parvas, the Pass of the Flocks, to find and bring back the toro buey. Adancito was a quiet, pale, thin boy.

"Where did you find the toro buey, sons?" asked Adán.

Adancito handed the lead rope to his father and walked to Manuelito to shake his hand. He did not answer his father because Rolando and the Governor were more eloquent.

"Papá, the toro buey didn't want us to get on him," said Rolando, switching at flies with the end of the tail.

"The toro buey is carajo, cranky and hard to manage at times," said Adán. "Where did you find him, little son?" he said to the Governor.

"¡Ayaaaaaaaa!" the little boy sang, pointing high to the top of Las Parvas and assuming a posture of importance by arching his back, dropping and swelling his belly, looking into the distance, and squeezing his eyebrows together. Memín watched his father with wide eyes, his bare heels gripping the black, loose hide of the toro buey, his toes pointing down and comfortably wiggling.

The man lifted his sons from the bull's back and swung them to the feet of their mother. He led the bull to a stall built of peeled pine poles and shut him in. He climbed to a loft above the stall and dropped rustling cornstalks to the bull. He took a small wooden box and measured a generous portion of corn for him.

"The toro buey is thin," Manuelito observed. "I have never seen him so thin. Customarily, he keeps himself compact."

"This has been a bad year," Adán said. "All animals are hungry. We've had little rain since last summer." Adán was repeating the same litany of hardship everyone in the Sierra recited each time someone noticed the thinness of livestock.

"You had a corn crop, though, Adán. Hardly anyone was given corn."

"I worked hard and I had rain on my crop when there was no general rain. Don't believe it was a good crop. The ground yielded only enough corn for our own use. I sold no corn. I gave some away, though."

"God helped you."

"Thanks to God," said Lucrecia.

"Thank God," said Adán. He said, "Thank God," out of habit, quietly so that maybe even God wouldn't hear him. He had quit depending on God or giving God very much credit. He believed in goodness and mercy and the luck to see it and practice it, but he did not believe in that "Thanks be to God" business anymore. He could not see how God had ever shown goodness or mercy or approval for any human. Whoever God was, he surely had it all his own way. Adán believed in El Toro Buey, in the beauty of his wife and sons, in always trying to be gracious to Manuelito the Vague, and in the Virgin of Guadalupe. He believed in the Virgin of Guadalupe because she was completely Mexican and had spoken to Mexicans. He wore her image on a gold medal on a gold chain on his breast. He believed in the Republic of Mexico and loved to sing out, Viva México!" and "I'm pure Mexican!" in painful happiness when he was drinking strong alcohol to excess. He had never heard the God people sing out, "I'm pure Catholic!" or "I'm pure Protestant, Alleluia!" or "I believe in God!" when they were feeling good--only when they were feeling bad, were repentant, or wanted something. He didn't mind anyone else believing in that "God of Our Fathers." He hoped they were right as long as all that nonsense about a man's having to go to hell for not believing was not true.

"More coffee?" Lucrecia asked quietly. "I know you, Manuelito, can drink more than one cup, and the Martinillo doesn't like the first cup at all unless there is a second cup following it quickly."

Martinillo went to the cool, dark adobe corner of a room in the back of his house. He uncorked a live gallon demijohn, a demajuana of mezcal, which had been distilled solely of the heads of the wild maguey of the Sierra. He poured a glassful and brought it to the table. The mezcal was clearer and cleaner than spring water.

"Here, Manuelito, a little swallow of the strong, a remedy for the heat," he said, setting the glass on the table. "You might have sat in the sun too long."

"Do you think mezcal is good to cool a man?" Manuelito asked innocently. He knew well that mezcal was considered a remedy for every ill.

"This is good mezcal, pure head," Lucrecia said. She lifted the glass and sipped. Manuelito followed the process of the swallow closely, carefully measuring the amount remaining in the glass when it returned to the table. He looked at Adán, who was making no move for the glass.

"Then, will you have a swallow with me, Adán?" he asked.

"Of course. Seguro que si, " Adán said, and swallowed half the contents of the glass. He handed it to Manuelito.

"Then, with your permission," Manuelito said.

"Enjoy it!" Adán said. "Provecho!"

Lucrecia, busy, said nothing. Manuelito offered her the glass and said, "With your permission, Señora. "

"Provecho, Manuelito," Lucrecia said, smiling.

Manuelito Espinoza stood and respectfully lifted the glass to his lips. He took the remainder of mezcal with one motion of wrist and throat so that the liquid did not stop, did not falter, but flowed directly from glass to stomach.

"Eso! That's the way to drink mezcal, " Adán said happily. "Standing up straight and making it flow with no effort that would cause it to tarry. The spirit spreads completely to a man's feet, does it not, Manuelito?"

"Exactly," said Manuelito. He set the glass on the table without looking at it. He knew it could not possibly contain a drop. He sat himself in his chair and sighed. He did not seem to notice when Lucrecia put a cup of coffee in front of him. He did notice when Adán held a spoon in front of him. Manuelito liked sugar in his coffee. He took the spoon, a new beacon on the course of his existence. He dipped three heaping spoonfuls of sugar into a four-ounce cup of sugar-roasted coffee. Adán smiled for him.

Manuelito picked up the hot cup and began supping his coffee in loud sips, three at a time. Adán tasted his own and the coffee was hot enough to scald his tongue, the cup almost too hot to hold. Everyone in the Sierra liked coffee hot and sweet, but Manuelito Espinoza liked his hotter and sweeter and oftener than anyone else. He finished his coffee and used both hands to set the hot cup back on the table. He did not look up, but searched the region of the table pertaining to him for any element alimentary which might have been placed there for him without his notice. He found none and straightened in his chair. He gazed about, seeing nothing, and belched slightly without noticing the sound or the slight tremor it caused around his head and shoulders. This seemed to bring him about on a new con and he remembered Adán.

"Adán Martinillo," he said. "You have always been a good boy. You have always been one to provide hot strong coffee, and one who always raised and cured good macuzi and papante tobacco, which you mix together in fine proportion. I enjoyed the tobacco your señora gave me a few moments ago. We have no tobacco at Avena. I was going to San Bernardo with the eggs when I lost my purpose for going. I would have had as my part Argentino cigarettes, which my hermanito, Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela, lets me have when centavos are left over after I pay for the provisions. We share all our provisions and Don Panchito is good to me in that way. He lets me have the extra pennies because he is not vicious about smoking.

"Lucrecia, please give us the tobacco and leaf again," Adán said, smiling.

"You are fine, Adán. I like to smoke even though I know smoking is a vice."

"Your smoking is not a vice in this house, Manuelito."

Manuelito prepared himself another cigarette and puffed on it until it was burning evenly. He sighed and looked at the coal of his cigarette.

"The boxes!" he said suddenly.

"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, and 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 bought 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.

Juan Vogel glanced back at Lucrecia. The boys, fearful he might want to acquire them too, moved closer to each other, masking their faces with their hands. They moved by only sliding their toes and heels sideways, the expressions in their eyes dulling in case Juan Vogel should look at them. Juan Vogel moved his chair away from the table and placed it with its back to the wall so he could look at Lucrecia when he talked to her. The boys froze in full view of him. He was not paying any attention to them. Lucrecia filled the coffee cups. The boys watched a daddy longlegs spider crawling shakily in a beeline toward Juan Vogel's boot. They stared in horror as the daddy longlegs' forward feeler leg touched the sole of the Vogel boot and directed the other seven legs to climb upon the foot and disappear under the trouser leg. As the tip of the last leg disappeared, the boys began watching Juan Vogel's face, their breasts swelling with mirth, the mirth rising and cramming into their throats, rising higher and causing tears to fill their eyes. Juan Vogel unconsciously reached to rub the tickle through the pantleg and the boys succumbed. They collapsed with mirth. Only then did Juan Vogel notice them and when he saw they were laughing at him he became preoccupied with the tickle.

"What has me?" he asked. He raised the trouser leg and found the poor lost spider, trastaviado, cross-journeyed like Manuelito. He brushed it to the floor and it wandered, crippled, on to new mistakes. Juan Vogel looked at the boys rolling on the floor with glee, laughed himself, and went outside immediately forgetting them. Adán sat still and enjoyed his sons.

"Hush!" Lucrecia said, smiling.

Outside, Juan Vogel had stopped by the door to whittle a match for picking his teeth. A hen had ruffled her feathers in the dust in the shade of the nacapúl. She had filled her feathers with fine dust and shut her eyes to doze. Now and then she twitched a wing and foot to cause more dust to bathe the skin under her feathers. In the center of the patio in the sun the Governor and Rolando, on hands and knees, were stalking her. They lay flat if the hen showed the slightest purpose. If the hen half-opened an eye they hid their faces behind their arms and stared at the ground. The boys were smiling at themselves for taking on so foolish a mission. Their eyes belied the foolishness. Their eyes showed serious intent and they hid their gazes from the hen. They got near enough to her to spring and capture her. They were side by side. They brought up their legs for the final commitment. The hen sensed them. She opened an eye to some indiscretion the boys committed. She noticed the shapes of them, did not believe them at first, saw their eyes. She closed and flattened her feathers, jerked her head around so her other eye looked at them, believed the boys' intent completely, and squawked away from under their hands.

The boys sat in the dust the hen had loosened. They looked around to see if anyone had been watching. Their smiles showed their embarrassment. They saw Juan Vogel laughing at them. Their smiles disappeared. They looked at each other and looked down, frozen under the man's gaze and laughter.

"¡Tontitos!" Juan Vogel accused the boys. "Little dummies! You should have attacked from different sides. You, Adán. Don't you teach these pups to hunt?"

"They're learning. When they stalk from different sides one pounces too late and one too soon. They bump and tangle each other. Nature will teach them if they are natural hunters."

"Is everyone in Las Animas a hunter, cousin? Have you no musicians, God forbid, or bankers? Oh, that God would give a good banker to the family."

"Ask their mother," Adán smiled.

"I don't need to ask their mother. I know her father and brothers are good hunters, but not as good as Lucrecia. I've heard that Lucrecia can smell the track of an animal."

"That's what they say," Adán said.

"Is it true?"

"Don't laugh if I tell you she knows the direction of a track without looking at it. I've tested her. She says she can't smell an animal, but I've seen her follow tracks over sheer rock for a hundred varas and more, hitting the visible track on ground on the other side as surely as if she had been following it by sight."

"To finish off some poor animal! What chance has a poor animal got if she can catch him without even knowing how she does it? I'd hate for her to be angry at me. You'd better watch your behavior. She's apparently better than you are, and you're the best I've seen."

"I'm a good tracker, but Lucrecia is a savage. I can see a track and follow it at a run. I can outrun Lucrecia, though she is fast, but she can beat me to an animal any time because she stays truly on the track. I often leave a track on instinct to save time. I am most often right in doing so, but sometimes I make a mistake and Lucrecia gains on me and beats me. Sometimes I doubt my own judgement. She never doubts hers."

"Do you often hunt together?"

"Not any more. We hunted often when she was a child. Since we married she has been with child or with babies to care for. She has been too fat, too cranky, or with too many small adornments holding on to her skirts."

"The boys seem to be hunters by nature. Which ones are the best?"

"I can't be sure yet. For perseverance and courage, I think Adancito and Rolando are best. For facility and instinct, the Governor and Memín."

"Do they hunt real game?"

"Adancito goes with me when I don't go far. Any time I leave them for a hunt they all cry like pups. Their only play is hunting. I've never seen one of them play at marbles or tops when I'm around."

"What marbles and tops? They'd have to learn marbles from other children. The nearest children to them are a full day's ride from here. Send them to school, man. They can stay with me in Rio Alamos. They'll turn out to be savages if you don't."

"Like their mother," Adán laughed.

"Ah! Tch!" Lucrecia said angrily from the window.

"These mountains are better than any school. Better they learn to love God and their mother than running in a drove and wearing out good leather on pavement."

"You see?" Adán said.

"Their father will teach them what he knows about books and numbers," Lucrecia said. "I know they are safe here. When they are grown and know how to defend themselves they can go to town if they want to. Not while they're still mine."

"It's true. I believe if they become good hunters they'll always be able to make a living," Adán said. "They have a chance for nature to teach them here."

"Even so, everyone needs formal education, Adán," Juan Vogel said. "Nobody gets by without it these days."

"In the cities, perhaps. Here, the real hunters have an advantage over those who can't hunt, or those who are only shooters waiting for a chance. Bring me a city man, however educated, however able to make money, and I'll watch him starve while he learns to hunt. In this Sierra we don't need money. Take me to the city and I'll starve while I'm trying to acquire the first money I need for eating."

"I don't believe you would be that useless in the city."

"I know what I am and I have no inclination for hunting fortunes in cities as you do. I'm forty years old. Next year I'll be forty-one. Isn't that the age in which they say a man changes and either improves or spoils? I'd spoil in the city."

"Don't ever be forty-one," Juan Vogel joked. "Be forty and then forty-two. They say a man can start longing for love with other men during the forty-first year. At least don't say you are forty-one. The other kind of man might start showing you too much attention."

Lucrecia laughed. "I hope he does start looking at the other kind of man and stops embarrassing me every year."

"No chance," Adán said. "Creo que todavia seguirdá dundo la mata vieja! I think the old plant will keep on giving fruit!"

"What a conversation!" Lucrecia said. "Have you nothing to do? The sun is going down while you talk. Now fruits and old plants have caught your interest. Hurry, sons, catch me the old rooster. We're having him for supper."

The boys spread out to hunt the rooster. A rooster crowed behind the house. The boys stopped. "It is he," Adancito said. He and Memín started for the back from one side. Rolando went around the other with the Governor following him. They did not waste time talking over a plan.

"Pobre gallito viejo! Poor little old rooster! He's doomed as all us old gallos are doomed," Juan Vogel said. "No matter how good we have been for the hens."

"Poor good little soup," Adán said. "At least we won't be made into a soup for anyone."

3

The two men and the boy rode the trail along the brink of the canyon called Teguaraco. Juan Vogel rode La Bomba in the lead. Adancito rode on the hips of the buckskin mare behind his father. The men and animals worked hard traveling the trail in the sun. Adancito watched Juan Vogel's thick brown neck where sweat curled silver hair under the yellow palm hat. The mare's bay filly colt followed closely by Adancito's bare foot, bumping it familiarly with her head, brushing it with her ears.

Adán did not rest his eyes. He watched the trail ahead of Juan Vogel for tracks. He watched the canyon for any life that might move there, for water that might be tanked and drying in the bottom. The brush on the mountains was in ashes from drouth. The mountains rose sharply and brownly above them. The only green on them was the tall cacti standing like soldiers as though to keep the slain from falling off the mountain. The cool sky was so clear and far away it pained Adán to raise his head to look at it. The animals stamping rock made echos in the stillness.

Adán carried his bolt action, single-shot .22 rifle. The rifle was slung over his back by a piece of strong cord. On his wrist he wore a cartridge bracelet. It contained all his ammunition, four rounds. He carried a bule gourd full of water. The bule was slung over his shoulder by cord netted on its belly.

They heard a man's mountain halloo. "Oooooaaaah! Hooooaaaah!" from the bottom of the canyon. "Las vuaaa-caaaas!" The man was shouting to them.

Adán recognized the voice of Ruelas, the vaquero of Gilaremos.

Juan Vogel rode to a cattle bed ground on a bare ridge where he could see into the canyon. The canyon held pools of blue water in white boulders, and cattle were picking their way unhurriedly among the boulders.

"We see theeeemmm!" Juan Vogel called to Ruelas.

"They'll get away when they get to the mouth of the canyon," Adán said, relaxed, counting the cattle, identifying them. These cattle did not panic when a man was after them. They moved carefully until they got the advantage on a man and then they used ruse, steep terrain, impenetrable brush, and brave, stubborn sure-footedness to escape him.

A small liver-colored dog was following the cattle. He paused to look back for Ruelas. The cattle disappeared down the canyon and the dog hopped and trotted over the boulders after them. Adán dismounted, moved the boy into his saddle, and handed him the reins. He unbuttoned his heavy spurs and hung them with the bule on his saddle horn. He swung the rifle off his back and carried it in his hand. He hurried down the trail, watching and listening for the cattle. His huaraches were surer than any hoof.

Adán and Ruelas were squatting and smoking in the shade when Juan Vogel and Adancito reached the bottom. The cattle, held and intimidated by the men and the sun, were standing quietly in shade. Ruelas smiled a greeting for Juan Vogel. He was spending his life happily searching the brush and mountains for Vogel cattle, and he had not seen his patrón for a year. A thorn had made a deep scratch from one cheekbone across the bridge of his nose to an eyelid. His face was dirty with dried blood and muddy sweat. His hands were scabbed. His hat was bashed, punctured, slashed, and broken, and sat on the back of his head sideways with the front of the brim pointed over one ear.

"What embroidered your face, Ruelas?" Juan Vogel asked, as if he didn't know. "It looks like jerky."

Ruelas smiled and picked at a scab on his knee through a tear in his trousers. "I roped that bronca brown cow on the scree under the cliff of Guisiego. She towed me down over the scree. No toeholds for me. We were going fast when she got off the scree. She jerked me into the top of an algarrobo, pure thorn, no leaf to cushion me. I wrapped the reata on the algarrobo and held her."

"When?" Juan Vogel asked.

"Yesterday--?" He thought again. "No. Day before yesterday."

Juan Vogel laughed. "What's the difference? The days are short for you."

"Ah, yes," Ruelas smiled. "So short and uneventful."

"Why didn't you just let her go off the mountain and catch her on the bottom where it wasn't so steep?"

"It took me six months to get her to a spot where I could get a loop on her. I knew if I let her go it would be another six months before I saw her again."

"A nice place you finally picked. The Guisiego is better suited for lions."

The liver-colored dog lay panting close to Adán. He was thin. His whole frame showed through his hide. Along his back a ridge of hair whorled like a line of whirlpools. He stood and a round puncture leaked blood on his hip.

"Mariposa, the Butterfly dog, has been working," Juan Vogel said. "My God! What happened to his hip? Is my whole crew wounded?"

"Celestino shot him," Ruelas said, smiling.

"¿ . . . sabe? Who knows? Maybe because he belongs to the Martinillo."

"Celestino the cuckold!" Juan Vogel said, exasperated. "Even idiots sometimes need a reason. What could the poor dog have done to him?"

"We were hunting deer with the dog. Celestino missed a shot at a good buck from fifty varas and blamed the Mariposa. He could only have been angry at himself. Mariposa made the shot possible for him."

"Why wasn't the Mariposa home with you, Adán? He's your dog."

"He stayed to help Ruelas. He doesn't like to be idle at home. He would rather hunt or work cattle."

"Celestino makes a bad face at the whole world when he misses his mark. I've seen him go three days without eating after losing control of his temper," Juan Vogel said. "I hope he starves himself sick this time. Have you doctored the wound, Adán?"

"No. He carries the bullet."

"What can we do? He won't be any use to us."

"Take out the bullet, that's all."

Ruelas caught the dog. Juan Vogel built a fire. Adán whetted his long, wide, bone handled knife on a flat rock. Ruelas squeezed the wound gently with his strong, dirty fingers. "The bullet is here, Adán." He smiled and showed the bulge of the slug in the lean thigh of the dog. The dog turned and licked the fingers. He watched Adán, as was his habit. Adán looked kindly at him while he scorched both sides of his blade on coals of the fire. Juan Vogel muzzled the dog and laid him on his side. Ruelas held the hind legs. Adán found the slug, sliced toward it and picked it out. He heated the blade again and laid the flat of it along the wound. The dog, unable to move, cried. The men released him and he bathed the wound with his tongue. Adán rubbed his ears. The dog licked his hand quickly and went back to salving the wound.

"Let's see the slug," Juan Vogel said. Adán had given it to Adancito. The boy, squatting on his heels, opened his palm and Juan Vogel picked the lead out of his hand.

"It struck the bone," Juan Vogel said.

Adán did not look up from his business of washing the knife in the arroyo. He wiped the blade on his trousers. He whetted it on the flat rock and honed it on a stirrup leather. He sheathed it.

"The cabrón is a bad shot," Adán said. "the bullet probably struck the ground before it tumbled into the dog." Mariposa stopped his cleansing of the wound to look at Adán. "The Butterfly will heal now," Adán said kindly to the dog. During the operation he had not unslung the rifle from his back. He was as accustomed to his rifle as he was to his hat.

Ruelas and the dog drove the cattle down the arroyo. The two men and the boy left them and climbed the trail to Limón. The day cooled as they rode through the skeletal brush. They topped the pass of Limón and looked down on the hacienda buildings that had been the first headquarters of the ranch. They stopped their animals to let them breathe. The buildings were far away and looked small but were directly beneath them so that if they wished they could hit them by lobbing rocks off the pass. The men felt sadness as they looked at the remains of Limón. They knew the inscription chiseled in stone on top the main house. The inscription read:

From this day,
On this Site,
By the Grace of God,
We Live.
Juan Vogel Espinoza,
7 May 1870.

"God, to live here again," Juan Vogel said.

They rode down into the canyon of Limón and crossed the moss-slick rock of a stream to the shade of aliso trees. They dismounted and unsaddled. The drying stream had left them a pool of hot, stagnant water. A translucent film shone on its surface. The trees grew close together on the bank and their shade was solid on the pool. Bald vultures perched on the highest limbs. Rocks by the pool were spattered with their droppings. The vultures did not fly. They were insolent.

Juan Vogel lay a saddle blanket over a rock and relaxed against it, his dusty leggings stretched out on the sand. Adán cleaned a well in the sand until clear water seeped into it. He took a cup, a sack of pinole, and a cake of panocha from his saddlebags. He made a thick paste of the corn flour and the cake of brown sugar with water in the cup and gave it to Adancito. He mixed another in Juan Vogel's cup. When Adancito had drunk the paste Adán mixed one for himself. He washed his cup and walked away to search a grove of lime trees for tracks and signs. He returned to the pool.

"The vultures must come here every day for water," Juan Vogel said, leaning back against the rock to watch the birds.

"This is not a good spot to water and rest. One load of that buzzard cuacha they dispense would flatten a man."

"They're full. They're digesting a cow that died upstream."

"In the stream?"

"Yes, cousin."

"¡Chingado! She picked a fine place to die. She wasn't even good at dying. Which cow?"

"The old white-faced cow."

"Did she have a calf?"

"Yes, a newborn bull calf. I fed her here three days ago."

"How long has she been dead?" Juan Vogel rinsed his cup and shook the water out."

"Two days."

Juan Vogel stood up. "Well, let's go and fish her out. She picked a nice, cool, wet place to die. An elegant place."

"I dragged her out of the water."

"Did she at least leave us her hide?"

"¡No, hombre!" How much could she and the vultures have left if she was so light I could drag her out without drawing a long breath."

"To finish me she leaves no hide! Now, to find the calf. He'll be so well hidden only his mother could find him."

The men saddled their animals and led them up to the patio of the hacienda. Cattle had been using the patio and the front porch for bed ground. Piles of manure were turning to dust on ground that Vogel women had once kept clean and hard. A rock corral bordered the patio. The corral was well kept. A snubbing post of forked mesquite was planted in the center of the corral, its arms and trunk burned with the grooves of many reatas wrapped in haste while a heavy catch bucked and charged and bawled to get away. Juan Vogel leaned with his forearms on the rock wall while he smoked. Smoke made him close his eyes to slits, and he did not relieve them by taking the cigarette from the corner of his mouth.

"Our Tio Pascual used to bury a half dozen demijohns of his wine around that snubbing post every two years," Juan Vogel said. "The wine aged in that ground was his best. He bragged it was so good he could drink a demajuana by himself at one sitting without any harm coming to him.

"He could drink wood alcohol without harming himself, I believe. He and four or tive friends could Finish a demajuana early in one night and nearly empty another by morning. The friends surrendered then and Tio Pascual drank on joking, singing, and calling for his breakfast. He could work all the next day and stay happy, while the friends were too sick to work.

"He liked to stand over the corral while we crowded broncs through the gate. He'd pounce on the back of one like a tigre and ride him with a mane hold as he bucked off the hill and across the stream. He'd dismount when the animal started up the other bank. He said riding a bucking horse uphill was taking advantage of dumb animals."

Adán laughed. Juan Vogel threw the butt of his cigarette into the corral. "I'm glad he isn't here to see the drouth," he said. "We never seemed to be short of pasture or provisions when my Tio Pascual lived. He would not allow any force of man or nature to ruin his country. This country ran twice as many cattle when he was here and even his burros were fat. He guarded his country with a roar of laughter. He defended it like a tigre. "

Adán smiled. "Maybe that was him I saw yesterday at Tepochici. I just saw his track in the lime grove."

"What did you see?"

"I saw a tigre, a big one. He's been here today."

"I'd like to have his hide to pay for my dead cattle."

"He isn't bothering us. He has plenty of deer in the heights."

"If that tigre was the ghost of our Tio Pascual he'd be bothering us. He'd be angry to see manure on his porch, vulture cuacha in his drinking water, his patio a bed ground, his winery dry and in ruins, orphaned calves, and no sound of laughter. He'd be haunting us for an accounting."

"Well, if that tigre was Pascual, he was on the track of deer and he was in such a hurry he didn't see me."

"Not a ghost, then," Juan Vogel laughed. "A ghost, Adancito?"

The boy hid behind his father's leg. Only occasionally did he fear ghosts. He feared the gaze of Juan Vogel all the time. Adán did not blame him. Juan Vogel had the same clear amber eyes of a tigre. Tio Pascual had been called "Tigre" and "Devil" and acted like a devil jaguar having fun. To distract Juan Vogel's gaze Adancito unwound his slingshot. He glanced at the man out of the corner of his eye to see if he was still watching. He moved slowly, like a rabbit mesmerized by a predator, trying to continue with his everyday business but fascinated into slow motion. He moved away and chose a rock. He hefted it and swung it in his sling and then he winged it with sudden ferocity at the complacent vultures in the alisos. The vultures flapped,  fell, gained momentum, and began to soar in the canyon. Adán tightened the cinches on the mare and lifted Adancito to the saddle. Adancito and Juan Vogel rode away toward Gilaremos. Adán started toward the place he had last seen the spotted bull calf of the dead white-faced cow.

He walked through the lime grove to a trail that was cut through vainoro brush. Each vainoro tree grew in several trunks sprouting long, supple branches. The trunks had inch-long spines jutting along their lengths. Limbs wielded short, hook-like spines. The limbs were locked fast among branches of more vainoro. The vainora forest formed a closed thicket where cattle could seclude themselves from sun, man, and predator. Vaqueros hacked tunnels through the thickets to search them. Adán knew every passage through every thicket in his region of the Sierra Madre the way a city man knows his streets. To another serrano he could explain the turns and bends and climbs to take in order to move fast over the Sierra the way one city man can describe to another the best avenues and streets to use to get across town.

He knew he might possibly come upon the jaguar when he saw his tracks again. He did not want to meet any jaguars in that vainorál. He was afraid for the calf because the jaguar had gone toward the place where Adán had last seen him. He came to the end of the canyon. The canyon was in the shade of a mountain now and was cool. He heard the hint of a growl in a breath and stopped. He squatted. He barely moved. He did not unsling his rifle so as not to make a move. He took his breath slowly through his mouth while he listened.

He became aware of another being only a few feet away. He felt his side and one buttock warm with the heat of the other body. He began to sweat, a condition his movement in the brush had not caused. He pivoted slowly on his heels until he faced the direction of the source of warmth. He saw only closed, bristling limbs. A sound showed him the flitting blue tail and wing tip of a russet chachalaca, the wild chicken of the region. A flock of them was coming toward him. The chachalacas flicked quietly together through the thicket, dropping to the ground for vainora berries; their round wings beating silently, their long tails slicing, their topknots alert as antennae.

He turned back to the mass of brush against the canyon wall. He searched for some uniformity and saw two dark eyes pointing at him. They were narrow in the outer corners, dark and unmoving, unseeing. He smiled. They were not eyes. They were the small nostrils of a calf. The calf was lying on his belly, his head extended snakily along the ground, feet and legs snug beneath him. His eyes were closed, the delicate lashes unmoving. Adán searched again and found the track of El Yoco. El Yoco had passed so close to the calf he could not have missed him, yet he had not bothered him.

Adán heard the growl again and looked to the head of the canyon. He saw the bright, spotted hide detach itself from the brush and climb out of the canyon, its lines of spots writhing like snakes. Adán smiled. The calf had detained him long enough so he had not crowded El Yoco into the end of the canyon. E1 Yoco, crowded, might have decided the easiest and most satisfying way out of the canyon was over the top of a Martinillo.

Adán began cutting brush away from the calf. The calf did not move while Adán worked. The blows of the knife were loud in the dark quiet of the canyon. The calf's eyelashes lay like silver along his cheek. How clean he was. Adán stooped to pick him up. The calf started to his feet and shook his head, challenging Adán as though he carried thick, sharp horns. Adán pulled him out of his hiding place by the ears. The calf came running, bucking and kicking at Adán. He bawled, his last defense. He called for his mother's horns. Adán carried him to Gilaremos. The calf bawled in his ear the whole way. Cows in the corral at the camp answered the calf's bawling and trotted to him, summoned by him. They crowded Adán in the corral, smelling the calf, excited by his ordeal. Adán turned the calf loose in a small corral with other calves.

Juan Vogel and five of his vaqueros were drinking coffee around a fire laid under the portal of the camp.

"You found him," Juan Vogel said to Adán. He was tired. He was not yet in condition for the work he had come to do. "Where?"

"Waiting on a platter to become a snack for your Tio Pascual."

Lucia, the woman of Ruelas, set a cup of coffee on the table for him. She carried a baby on her hip. Her eyes showed pleasure in seeing Adán. She wore a bright red scarf tied around her brow. The long ends hung down her back. She was handsome.

"Thank you, comadre, " Adán said.

"For nothing, compadre, " she said and went back into her kitchen to nurse his godson.

"What did you see at Limón?" Juan Vogel asked after he had watched his cousin closely to see what his humor was.

"Didn't I just tell you?" Adán said in a good humor because he had delivered the calf. "Our Tio Pascual was in the vainorál in the form of a jaguar."

"You saw the tigre?"

"I only saw the color and movement of him as he left the canyon."

"Is he a big one?"

"He is in all the milk of a tigre, all the fullness of a tigre. "

"Did he see you?"

"He was not impressed by me."

The vaqueros listened while Adán ate supper and told about finding the calf. One of them, José, was nursing a sore foot. He groaned softly as he listened, and when Adán finished his story about El Yoco he filled the silence with a moan.

"And you, José? What's wrong?" asked Adán.

José lifted a swollen foot for Adán's inspection. "I was stomped by the dun Brahma bull," he said, grunting. Ruelas laughed. "The big dun liked his body for a place to leave plain tracks."

José sipped coffee noisily, grunting. The grunt was half satisfaction with the coffee and half acknowledgement of a message of unpleasantness his foot was sending him. Adán laughed. The rest of the vaqueros took his lead and laughed with him. José smiled. "I surprised the dun bull at the winery springs. I roped him riding the palomino mare mule, La Gabardina. To save the mule until Alfredo came to help me, I got off her to tie the bull to a tree. I had not seen Alfredo. I tied too fast, used a poor knot, and gave the bull too much slack. He charged me, hooking at me with horns that are the greatest of keys for unlocking the buttocks of a vaquero. "

"'Ow! Ow! Owowowowow!' He was saying when I rode up," Alfredo said, imitating his comrade without looking up from the fire. "He thought he could get away, but he couldn't tie knots with big bulls chasing him."

"I was in my chaps and spurs. I couldn't have run further than the length of the rope. I stretched all the run I could find in myself going uphill to the spot where the bull would stop at the end of the rope."

"The knot slipped," said Alfredo, "and the bull caught José crawling on the rocks. He got down on his back like a coon and the dun bull passed over him, turned on top of him, and went back over him. Then the bull ran into the vainorál where we couldn't see him. I rode away to catch La Gabardina. I looked back and José was getting himself in trouble again. He was catching the end of the reata the bull was dragging."

"I picked up the reata only to hold him so he wouldn't go further into the brush," said José. "He came out of there as though he was broken to lead and over the top of me he came again. He trampled my same foot three times."

"Anyway, he didn't get away," Alfredo said.

"Yes, and isn't he there in the corral?" José said.

"On your saint's day, José," Adán said. "Today is the day of the Josés."

"The dun bull is my niña, "said José. "My godfather. He baptized me with squirts of manure."

"Angry manure," Alfredo said. "Hot manure for your sins."

"Angry manure stinks, sounds bad, and tastes bad. My niña baptized me in the nose, ear, and mouth."

"Do they smell as bad as your scared manure, José?" asked Ruelas, teasing.

"I wouldn't know. I wasn't scared. I was busy."

"Lucia, bring the chicura for my compadre, José," Ruelas called, laughing. José unwrapped the sore foot and presented it to the warmth of the fire. The skin was shiny with swelling. The shine broke through a crust of body oils, spilled coffee, food, dust, and manure. Lucia brought the broad leaves of wild chicory she had heated on a steel tortilla disk. José held up his foot and Lucia plastered the hot leaves on the foot and ankle. The leaves secreted a sticky juice that smelled like creosote.

"Ahhhhhh!" said José, the foot covered and steaming.

"¡Ah, ah, hay agua!" Juan Vogel said, yawning and stretching. He walked along the portal in the dark away from the fire. He found a cot and unfolded it. He untied his blanket from behind his saddle. He spread his saddle blankets on the cot, lay down, and covered himself.

Adancito was nodding, his eyes on the fire. "Let's sleep, son," Adán said. He rose and went to the olla. He dipped a cup of water for his boy. Adancito drank and handed the cup back. Adán drank the rest of the water. They spread their saddle blankets on the clean patio and lay down together under Adán's serape. Adán smelled the warmth of Lucrecia in the blanket and in that moment Adancito was asleep. Adán lay with his eyes open.

"We'll have a full moon tonight, cousin," Adán heard Juan Vogel say. "You better sleep under the portal. If the moon doesn't make you a lunatic, the dew will give you pneumonia."

Adán did not answer. The patio was clean, packed, sandy loam burned all day by the sun and did not house scorpions, spiders, or cockroaches. This camp was only used once a year and the men were encroaching on their habitat. He thought of the essence of color in the clean hide of the jaguar, and it thrilled him. He stared at the moon, the color of the jaguar's hide. El Yoco's range had extended with the growth of his power and brought him here. Adán hoped he would go away to fatter country. Jaguars liked water, humidity, damp jungle. This country could not support a predator so formidable. The only fat produce of the country this year was the newborn crop of calf and colt. El Yoco was in the finest stage of his life and he needed plenty of meat. He was not afraid to take any region, any meat, any mate. He was not afraid of anyone who chose to be his enemy. He was best at killing. He could become cebado, spoiled on his own fine power and beauty.

With these preoccupations Adán Martinillo, the hunter, slept.

4

Adán was awakened early by a sow with four sorrel piglets rooting at his feet. "Shhhhhhhtah--ssssssst!" he said in selfdefense, kicking at her. The sow tucked her chin, shifted on her shoulders like a boxer, and backed away, an experienced dodger of kicks and thrusts. Adán lay still a moment, waiting to become fully awake while he was still comfortable. He saw Alfredo squatting by the fire. Adán watched him while he gauged how much time remained until sunup. Alfredo's Indian face in the light of the fire was immobile. His wide mouth was sealed straight across his face against the heat. The eyes slit at the corners to cheekbones that buttressed the face the man had turned toward the day. The wide-brimmed hat obscured movement of the eyes. The highlights of the face shone with fire. He was stirring coffee with a wooden spoon as it boiled.

A flock of parrots passed high over the camp, flying higher than the tall mountains, flying clumsily and complaining of the difficulties of flight for parrots. Adán rolled from under the blanket, put on his hat, tied on his huaraches, and went to the fire with his cup.

"Buenas dias, " he said, pouring coffee for himself.

"How was your awakening?" Alfredo asked. "Did the bugs disturb you? I either had bedbugs or jejenes, those little flying animals you hear but never see. Whatever bit me burnt me like fire. I got up early because I couldn't stand it anymore."

"No bugs. I had a larger animal guarding my sleep. Weariness. Bugs didn't bother me. Their stingers and fangs are limp as far as I'm concerned if I'm sleepy when I go to bed."

"They burn me like fire," Alfredo said.

"They like you," Adán said. "They don't like me. I brought Adancito for insurance. They like him and they would be fools to leave him for me."

Juan Vogel rose from his cot, his heavy body clumsy from sleep and spilling from his unfastened clothing. He put on his hat and caught his tangled hair. The cock crowed. The cock of Gilaremos had an injured voice that gurgled when he sang.

"That rooster is about half adenoidal, the cabrón, " Juan Vogel said. "And he sang that way all night." He stared at the fire while he buttoned his trousers. He sat in a chair with no thought of comfort. "I smelled the coffee boiling," he said.

Adán handed him a cup of Alfredo's café arriero, drovers' coffee boiled in a can and settled with cold water. Juan Vogel buttoned one shirt cuff. He pushed the other sleeve up and scratched his elbow.

"The animals pastured on you." Alfredo smiled.

"¡Válga! We've infringed on the querencia, the very haunt, of all fanged and poisonous bloodsuckers," Juan Vogel said. "What do you suppose they do for a living when we aren't here for a roundup, eat vipers and Gila monsters? They've filled me with poison."

José limped to the fire.

"Your hoof? How was its dawning?" asked Alfredo.

"My pata is lumping on me as I stand on it. Last night it hurt me so much--eh." José broke off explaining, as though any statement was too much an extension of the ordeal. "And then when I put my weight on it this morning--eh." He smiled, but his eyes were without joy. "In the night, when I tried to rest it--eh."

"I want that barren brown-and-white-spotted cow," Juan Vogel interupted, his eyes on the fire. "We're sending the cattle you've gathered to San Bernardo with drovers tomorrow. I want to send that cow with this first drive. Is she fat?"

"Fat as cheese, fat as butter. A little dove for fat," José said, relieved to speak of business and not sore feet.

"Do you know where she runs, cousin?" Juan Vogel asked Adán.

"Yes."

"Well, you should be able to bring her down today by yourself, shouldn't you? After all, she's gentle."

"Yes, real gentle. That cow is gentle if a vaquero can bring her out of the canyon under the Guasisaco escarpment, turn her off the file of the sawtooth, run her through the oak forest where he can keep her in sight, turn her downhill when she gets to the cliffs of the Lion and then follow her off the cliffs into the arroyo. There, in the arroyo she'll gentle if a man can rope her and still have breath to tie her to a tree so he and she can get their tongues back inside their heads for the march into camp. She'll be gentle here in the corral, all right."

"Well, we need her. She's fat, and meat is high in Rio Alamos. Try and get her today."

Adán finished his coffee and went out to find the saddle horses and mules. The remuda was running with the buckskin mare and her filly. The mare carried a bell on her neck and he had no trouble locating her. The animals lined out at a trot toward camp in anticipation of the ration of tasol and corn they would be given. They rattled rocks off the trail into camp and streamed into the patio where they slid on their hind legs to stop against a fence. They turned back with their heads high, whinnying. Adán was proud to see that Adancito had folded the blanket and left their bedground.

He caught the buckskin mare and led her outside the fence to feed her. The filly followed. He went to the fire where the big olla was boiling full of beans. Juan Vogel was boiling potatoes in their skins in the bean water and frying eggs for breakfast. They had no meat. Adancito had already been served and was sitting at the table with his hat on, sleep in his eyes, his feet sticking straight out from the chair, his toes wiggling. He was using pieces of tortilla to pick up egg, potatoes, and beans.

Adán sat down with him and ate his breakfast. When they had finished he saddled the mare for Adancito. Adán was sending the boy home with the mare and filly. The stores at Gilaremos did not hold enough tasol or corn to feed Adán's animals. He would work the roundup afoot. He was more efficient afoot in the broken country where the healthiest cattle ran.

He stood in the patio and made a cigarette while he watched the boy ride away. The boy had not said a word all morning. He had been concentrating on the responsibility of his piloting their livestock to Las Animas.

Adancito Martinillo was not afraid of the long ride home alone. He was making the ride by himself for the third time in his life. He was not afraid of the mountains. He was used to seeing mountains rising to peaks straight over his head, smooth cliffs falling away to deep space inches from his feet. The boy had never seen or walked on a plain.

He was afraid of ghosts. His mother enjoyed sitting at the table after the supper dishes were put away, to talk of ghosts and spirits and shapes that moved and mourned when night was darkest and people most alone. He thrilled, listening to these stories. He never told anyone how much they frightened him for fear his mother would not tell them any more. But he so feared a meeting with a ghost that he trembled and hurried when he had to go out on errands away from the house in the dark.

He was a boy who spoke seldom and cried rarely. When he cried he moved away from other people and fought crying alone. If he could not get away he closed his eyes in misery and looked at no one. Being afraid had often made him cry. Now that he was nearing Limón where the ghost of Tio Pascual might be hovering, he felt the ache in his throat that preceded crying. He wished he could race the mare through the lonesome old hacienda and not stop until he was far away on the other side, but he was disciplined to spare his mount and hold a slow mountain pace. He must pass through a gate, lead the mare through, and close the gate--a vulnerable chore. The gate poles were heavy. The mare was tall and he would have to dismount to heft the poles. He could open the gate without dismounting, but he could not close the gate without getting off the mare and giving any ghosts all the time in the world to manifest themselves while he was tiny on the ground.

Adancito, approaching the buildings, was so careful about noise that the unshod animals he guided made no great sound in the sun-heavy morning. The first harsh sound he made was when he let the top gate pole fall to the ground. It seemed never to stop booming. The noise effected a scare of raucous, crackle-voiced chachalaca from the pool where he had shared pinole with his father. He calmed himself before the wild chickens alighted. They settled quickly in the top of a lime tree. The boy jumped off the mare, tied her, and ran to the rock corral while the chachalaca were still busy with their footing. He unwrapped his slingshot as he ran along the wall inside the corral. He could not see the birds from the corral, but he could hear them speaking. He wanted to kill a chachalaca. They might be fat on limes and vainoro berries.

He had trapped chachalaca here in the fall with his father. They had taken five birds. The traps were folded away inside the hacienda. Adancito remembered picking out their feathers. How clean they were with a smooth white powder protecting their skin. The flesh and innards were sheathed in yellow fat. Adancito's mouth began to water. He remembered how pleased his mother was when his father placed the heavy bag of birds on her table. She would be proud of Adancito if he took her a chachalaca. He did not consider that this time of year was the nesting season and his father would not approve of killing them.

Adancito climbed the corral wall and dropped behind the crumbled adobe walls of a saddle house. He chose his rocks as he moved. He stepped inside the saddle house. The chachalaca were across the stream from him. He hid in shadow and laid a rock in his sling. The birds were not looking for him. They were watching the horses and were unafraid. They were swinging and flicking at inches of air for balance while they searched the topmost branches for limes. Adancito chose the bird he wanted, swung his sling, snapped the thong, and let his rock fly. The rock shot through the lime tree without touching a bird. They beat their wings into a quick glide and stopped close in the vainoro. Adancito stalked them on his hands and knees in the vainoro. He followed their sound and the vague flitting of their wings. They were too quick and too smart for him. They allowed him to get close enough so he felt he was a threat to them, but they never left the inside of the vainoro. They never winged out to fly above the brush. The boy's sling was useless in the thicket.

Near the end of the canyon the chachalaca finally left the vainoro. They flew clear of the thicket and back toward the lime grove. Adancito watched them go with no rancor. He relaxed his hunt and left the vainoro. He jumped into a wash in the canyon. He looked to the head of the wash and saw the jaguar climbing out. The chachalaca had made him forget the ghost of his father's Tio Pascual. The spirit of the hunter was high in him. El Yoco was the finest target any hunter would ever have in his life. Quickly he swung a rock in his sling, afraid the target would get away. El Yoco did hurry when he caught the gaze of Adancito. Adancito snapped a fine heavy, jagged rock just as El Yoco stopped at the brink of the canyon to look back. The rock struck him in the outer corner of an eye, hurting him.

Adancito was sorry as he watched the perfect animal spin and cry out with hurt. He was sorry for marring the person and beauty of so fine an animal, an animal who had meant no harm to him. Adancito felt mean and small for what he had done. El Yoco recovered and looked for Adancito. He waved his head back and forth because he could not see with the injured eye. Adancito backed down the wash. El Yoco roared a rebuke, fully menacing him. The sight of the wide head, the open mouth, the leveled gaze that forgot the hurt in the eye, scared the boy. Adancito slung another rock and swung it overhead to menace El Yoco while he backed away. He snapped it free and turned to run without seeing if it went true. The rock stung El Yoco's side. He sprang along the brink of the canyon above the boy.

The mare and the filly had smelled and heard the jaguar. The mare fought against the lead rope. The filly caught her mother's panic and ran away. Adancito knew better than to untie the mare before mounting. She would jerk away and leave him afoot. He jumped from a gate pole to his saddle, hung there by the saddle horn while the mare strained and reared. He calmed her with his reins long enough to untie the lead rope and drop two gate poles. The mare vaulted the bottom poles and Adancito let her run. He pointed her up the trail toward Rancho Quemado. He whipped and kicked her every step up the mountain and when she reached the top he stopped to let her blow in the shade of a pine. She shook with cries for her colt. Adancito rested to see if the filly would catch up. He took off his hat. His head was streaming with sweat. He wiped his face with a small hand. He was weak and tired. He reined the mare to the trail and made her gallop toward Rancho Quemado. The sight of the thick, strong two-story rock walls of the house made him feel safe enough to slow the mare to a trot. He stood in his stirrups, searching for Lico, the caretaker, or Ophelia, his wife. He rode the mare off the trail and down stone steps to the patio. He called and the mare danced in the patio. He called impatiently again and reined the mare around, intending to go on.

"Quéhubo?" he heard a man grunt.

"Lico!" Adancito called again.

"What is it?"

"Lico, please!"

"Wait on yourself. One moment." Adancito heard the man's steps scuffing along the cement floor in the house. Lico appeared behind a screen door stuffing his shirttail inside his trousers. He came outside buckling his belt. He looked at the boy. The boy had interrupted his rest and comfort.

"What is it? Who are you?" Lico looked at the mare.

"Why are you killing that mare?"

"I'm Adán Martinillo. A tigre. A tigre--" He could not speak and began to cry.

"Ah, Adancito. I know you now. I thought I recognized the mare. Get down off that poor animal."

"A tigre chased me," cried the boy, shouting at Lico.

"Tigre? What tigre? There are no tigre in this Sierra. Tigre are what we have in Sinaloa where I come from. Gato tigrillo is what you saw. Ocelot are not dangerous, so don't cry. Now, if it was a tigre, that which is the true jaguar, then you would have been in danger."

"I tell you, Lico, it was a jaguar! My father saw him too. Down at Limón. My father says he might be his Tio Pascual and the tigre is angry because I hit him in the eye with a rock from my honda. He scared away the filly."

"How you talk! I've never heard you say a word. When you talk you tell great big stories, don't you? Get down." Lico turned and walked toward the house. "I'll make your lunch. I killed a deer in the orchard last night. What tigre? What a big history!"

Adancito rode back up the steps to the trail. He kicked the mare into a trot. Tears bounced from his eyes with the mare's rough trotting. He could not see. He lost rhythm with the mare and bounced awkwardly on the saddle. He held on to the saddle horn to keep from falling off. The mare started down into the deep trail of Arroyo Hondo and the boy had to stop crying to see. The trail was dangerous with pitches of flat rock. Should a horse slip, the scrambling to regain footing could cause a fall. In places a horse could fall clear for hundreds of feet. Then on a sheet of rock, descending at a steep angle, the mare suddenly whirled underneath Adancito, nearly throwing him. Legs flailing, she fled back up to a switchback before Adancito could stop her. He turned her around. She did not want to go back to the spot where she had shied. She pranced suicidally on the edge of the granite switchback.

Adancito saw El Yoco waiting over the trail below him. The jaguar was lying flat over the trail, looking up into Adancito's eyes. His ears were flattened against his head, his tail whipped. He seemed disgusted at being caught in the open in an attitude of preying. Adancito picked a rock off the mountain by his shoulder and threw it angrily at El Yoco. The mare shied again. When Adancito could look again, El Yoco had descended to the trail, blocking his way completely. The boy chose a bigger rock and threw it down at El Yoco with both hands. The mare bucked and spun. The boy had dropped his reins to handle the rock. He could not reach the saddle horn. The mare kept spinning under him. He swung out over the chasm of Arroyo Hondo. He hooked a leg around the swell of the saddle. In the spin his shoulder and the side of his head struck the granite wall of the switchback and he was slammed back against the mare. He caught the saddle horn and righted himself. He picked up the reins and held the mare. His hat had fallen and landed at the feet of El Yoco. El Yoco smelled it, fell on it, and shredded it. He moved out of sight.

Adancito could not force the mare down the trail. He hurried her up the trail and found another, fainter and more dangerous trail used by shake and shingle makers who went into the canyon afoot.

He kicked the mare into a gallop when he reached the bottom of Arroyo Hondo. Blood ran from a gash that curved on the bone by his temple from cheekbone to eyebrow. The boy stopped the mare when he saw blood soaking his shirt and making the swells and horn of the saddle sticky under his hand. He looked at the palm of his hand. He smelled the blood and fainted. He fell and rolled under the mare. The gentle mare did not move. Her sides heaved and she whinnied for her filly as though her heart would break. She hung her head and smelled the fresh blood of the boy close between her legs, was afraid almost to lunacy, but did not move. The trail was so deep and the next step so high that she could not go on without stepping on the boy. Arroyo Hondo was darkening. The sun had set. Her ears bowed forward at the first sound of a man coming up the trail.

Manuelito Espinoza, talking to himself, urging himself along his way back to Avena, saw the mare's head appear over the rise he was negotiating with Adán's burro. The burro was loaded with shakes, shingles, boxwood, and mezcal heads. He was going to cook the heads so that he and his little brother, Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela, would have the meaty pulp to chew for its rich sugar. The mezcal meat was rich as pineapple, brown as panocha, brown sugar.

At first Manuelito thought the buckskin mare of Adán Martinillo was caught in a trap. She was so still in the legs. She only moved her neck, her head, her ears, and eyes as though she wished to flee but was being held down by the feet. He tied the burro to a tree so he would not wander away and roll on his sides to dislodge the cargo. He walked cautiously to the mare and caught her rein. He tried to lead her and saw Adancito lying beneath her.

"¡Valgame!" he said. "What are you doing down there, lump of a boy?" He put his hand on the mare's neck along her side, keeping his hand on her. "Ho, yeguita! Little mare, ho!" he soothed. He steadied himself with the saddle horn and felt the clotting smear of blood. He looked at his hand, astonished at the gore it had encountered. He wiped the hand on the mare's shoulder and ran it down her zebra-striped front leg. "Ho, La yeguita! Ho!" he commanded softly. He held the mare's front foot off the ground so she would not bolt, and he pulled the boy out by the collar of his shirt. "Ho, my little mother mare," he said. He lay the boy down and brushed his face with both his confused and calloused hands, hands more calloused for the many false starts they made. He smoothed the clotted hair and picked the caked blood away from the pale face while he searched for his own bearings in the tumbling gyro of his tired purpose. He found cobwebs to clot the wound and leaves to wipe the blood from the saddle. He held the boy under his arm and mounted the mare. He sat the boy across his lap. He left his burro tied and rode toward Las Animas. "Poco a poquito, little by little, La Yegua, " he soothed the mare when he was underway. The mare was anxious to get home. She was afraid. "A paso de burrito, at a little burro's pace, we'll get home with no more trouble."

The moon had not risen. Near Las Animas Manuelito could not see the oak limbs and low pine branches he had to pass through in the dark. The mare began to bolt and shy, snorting and prancing at shapes, odors, and sounds Manuelito could not sense at all. She lifted her head and whinnied often, stopping to listen for an answer. Manuelito wondered where the filly colt was. He was happy when he rode around a hill and saw Lucrecia's lamplight shining close. The mare trotted impatiently to the patio. She stopped abruptly on her front feet, nearly dumping Manuelito at Lucrecia's door.

"Hola, Lucrecia!" Manuelito called. "Come and take your son." The young woman came to the door, recognized the horse and rider, and stepped out to take the mare's rein. Manuelito leaned down from the saddle to hand her the bundle of Adancito. The boy's face was away from the light.

Lucrecia recognized the boy's feet. One huarache was hanging by the strap from the ankle. "¡Ay!" she said with a quick, soft breath.

"He's been struck. He is very battered. Be careful. ¡Maldito sea! Damned, but I found him this way on the old trail of Arroyo Hondo, and he has not come to himself yet. He has murmured, so I know he's alive. He's very cold, though."

Lucrecia carried the boy into the house and laid him on the kitchen table. Manuelito unsaddled the mare and put her in the stall beside El Toro Buey. She did not eat or drink. She ran nervously around the pen nickering and snorting into the night. Manuelito went into the house and found Lucrecia bathing Adancito. She had stripped him and wrapped him in a blanket. She cleaned away all the blood and tied a moist, warm cloth on the wound around the eye when it began to bleed again. She moistened a piece of the flesh side striffing of a dried deer hide to lay over the wound and hold it closed. She saw the paleness and thinness of her boy. She had not seen him naked for a long time because he was the oldest and he tended to himself. He helped Lucrecia with the dressing and bathing and feeding of his brothers. Seeing him unconscious, naked, helpless, Lucrecia was reminded how small he was. He was only eight years old and was expected to be responsible for his brothers and the livestock when Adán was gone. He never cried any more. He complained, though. He was not too big to complain. She was thankful that her other creatures were safe asleep. She could give all her attention to Adancito.

"What could have caused this blow, Manuelito?" Lucrecia asked. "The mare is gentle. Listen to her cries! Where's the filly?"

"I didn't see the Elly. Some susto, some fright or shock, separated them. Maybe the same shock that injured the boy injured the filly more seriously. What do you think?"

Lucrecia picked the boy up in the blanket. "I think so," she said. "The filly is lost or she would be at her mother's teats now. The same susto happened to them both because if you had not found Adancito he would not be here either. Thank God you found him."

"What meanness could hurt little boys and colts? Only a meanness would separate innocents from their mothers. What could these innocents have committed that would cause them to be harmed and frightened?"

"I don't know, Manuelito. Some coward has done this."

Lucrecia carried Adancito to her room and put him to bed. Manuelito heard him whimper, speak, and be consoled by his mother until he was silent again. "He's warm now," Lucrecia said when she came back into the kitchen. "He told me he is hungry. He'll rest awhile so I can feed him."

The mare screamed with the fear only animals not endowed with tooth and claw for tearing flesh know how how to scream. She kicked the boards of the stall and screamed again. A low snoring moan filled the small valley of Las Animas and vibrated inside Lucrecia Martinillo's spine. She could almost feel the breath of the jaguar in her ear and smell his stale maw.

"Tigre!" she said and ran to the doorway. At that moment El Toro Buey let go his bull's challenge in a voice as strong as the jaguar's. The stall rattled on its posts as his horns lifted and thrusted against the boards. The moan of El Yoco came again on top of the bellow of the bull. The moan encompassed Las Animas and seemed to claim lordship over the place.

"How close is that animal?" asked Manuelito. "He sounds close enough to be in the house."

Lucrecia stepped out on the patio in the light and lifted her head. "He's on the hill where you can first see the house from the trail. He's upwind from us. I smell him."

All life in the valley was silent a moment, waiting on the humor of the visitor.

"That moan. Is that the way the tigre sings?" Manuelito asked.

"The tigre sings that way to scare up blood and flesh," Lucrecia said softly.

As though to substantiate Lucrecia, the jaguar raved at the valley. The sound was so pervasive that every voice in Las Animas save those of Lucrecia and El Toro Buey answered with whimperings of fear. Manuelito prayed confusedly to the jaguar. The sons of Martinillo called in small cries for their mother.

The small animals of Las Animas, awakened, hid in the corners each had chosen as safest for sleeping. The mare screamed again and hurtled into the boards that enclosed her. El Toro Buey challenged again. The boards of the stall gave way and Lucrecia and Manuelito heard the buckskin mare running away.

"El Toro Buey is loose now and he won't run." Lucrecia said. "He's our defense. We have no rifle, no pistol, no arms of any kind."

5

El Toro Buey bellowed with every step as he swung in a wide circle away from the house. He wanted El Yoco to know where he was.

El Toro Buey had centuries of the blood of bulls of fighting casta behind him. He was of the breed called corriente by the Mexicans, the common cattle of Mexico. The corriente has survived since the Spaniard brought his foundation stock of cattle in the colonization of Mexico. The blood of bulls of Spanish casta, the brave bulls raised for the bull ring, is strong in the corriente. The corriente is generally not as beautiful, as well made, as pugnacious toward life or human beings as the brave bull, but he has the bottom, the stamina, the valor, and nobility of the fighting bull. From the brave bull of his ancestry El Toro Buey inherited the sense that battle was good whether it be against a living adversary or for survival in hard country. He would not be intimidated and he would not run from pain. He would not miss a meal because of natural borders or any other adversity.

El Toro Buey was a throwback in physique to the brave bull. He was black. His every characteristic resembled those of the finest of brave bulls save one, his affinity for the Martinillo family. His eyes were wide set and clear. His head was short, his muzzle small. His shoulders were thick. His bone was thick, but his feet were small and quick. His body was long, but his loin, hips, and thighs were hard with supple muscle. His hind legs were straight as a quarter horse's.

Dominating all the fineness he had inherited from the fighting bulls was his pride--his wide, heavy, thick-based horns that tapered out to sharp points. His horns were as sharp as knitting needles and he was as quick and dexterous with them as a boxer is with his hands. He was capable of using his horns with all the fencing and killing power of sword or ax and he carried a half-ton of power behind them to drive, slice, fend, or chop away an opponent.

El Toro Buey loved to fight. This love was as strong as his love for breeding cows. He sired more offspring than any other bull in his region. He had plenty of competition because bull calves were not castrated by their owners, and all male cattle contested for the right of sireship from the time they were a year and a half old.

El Toro Buey had thrown many calves from cows that did not belong to the Martinillo. The Martinillo only had five cows. Martinillo had only to turn him loose after the summer clearing and plowing when the rains had come and the grass was green, and El Toro Buey would set about re-establishing his rights as sire over his querencia, his haunts. The range of his haunts were so phenomenally large that Juan Vogel wanted to take him to the slaughterhouse. No Vogel Brahma bull, or Hereford bull of his cousins, or Holstein or Charolais bull of other ranchers who were trying to improve their stock and always sold to Juan Vogel, had a chance at a cow if El Toro Buey was in the region when she came in heat. One encounter with El Toro Buey convinced any bull that to lock horns with him was to fight for the rest of his life, run, or be killed. Usually the bull so audacious enough to stand and fight soon found it a better course to run away and leave him to his pleasures.

El Toro Buey did not wait for his cows at the water holes where the well-bred, fancy, high-priced bulls waited with complacency. El Toro Buey caught them on the mountaintops, in the dry ravines, called them to him from across the canyons, backed them up on the brinks of precipices, ran them down on steep trails, crowded them into the density of the spiny forests, and then made it in time to the water holes to run off the fat, complacent bulls. The cows who walked docilely, gently, and unexpectingly to water were the cows he bred while he was resting. He liked his wild cows best, and he hunted them down and bred them first.

He was lucky he lived in a region where most of the ranchers were trying to improve their cattle breeds with bulls who would throw calves that yielded great amounts of beef. He had few corriente bulls to challenge him. He and the corriente often paced half a day to meet for a fight. They called each other all the way until they met and fought. El Toro Buey always won. In the fall the Martinillo would go hunt him up and find him fat, his hide shining, refreshed, and unwilling to return to Las Animas to do the work of an ox. The Martinillo needed him in the fall, but El Toro Buey also needed the Martinillo's protection. Cattlemen came to gather and wean their cattle in the fall. Cattlemen, expecting to find high-priced Brahma and Hereford calves, were going to find black corriente calves, the images of El Toro Buey. The Martinillo did not want El Toro Buey to get shot.

Now, he was swinging his body powerfully in a trot, a black bull going on the fight. He cast a long black shadow from the risen moon. His hooves struck the silver shine off the silt-covered rocks in the dried arroyo. He was headed for ground good for battle in the small hidden pocket of the ranch. His thinness gave him lightness of foot and movement. His neck hump swelled and rolled as he trotted. Dust sprayed from it. Dust he had bathed it with when he pawed the earth anxious to fight. He found the spot in the middle of the arroyo where he would fight. He threw up his head, tossed his horns, and sounded his cry, begging unashamedly for his enemy. El Yoco did not need to be begged. The swollen eye, shot through and heavy with clotting blood, had maintained his rage all day. Now the pain and pressure in his head made him crazy for a fight. He, like the wolverine of the North or the striped tiger of the East, was capable of vengeance. He was the headsman of his world and proud to perform his office whether it be for vengeance, for whim of mischief, for punishment, or for a favor to any being he considered in need of a quick death.

He rose from his place on the hill where he had been suffering. He walked out of the shadows of the trees, let his rich hide shine for a moment broadside to the moonlight. He ran straight to the top of a bank above the arroyo. He screamed for battle, dove for the bull, screamed again when he missed. He feinted to invoke the bull's charge, quartered on the bull like a banderillero, presented his side as a target. The bull was forced to double back sharply against himself to follow him. El Yoco sprang lightly for the hump of the neck, making his body an immense banderilla. His jaws shut full of muscle and hide. His claws slashed the shoulders and back of the bull. El Toro Buey pitched high and tossed El Yoco forward. The jaguar lost the purchase of his claws. El Toro Buey jarred his front feet into the ground and kicked high behind. He spun when his hind feet struck the ground. For a moment El Yoco stood on his head, his teeth deep into the hump. As he was jerked high above the bull, he released the hold of his jaws so he could twist and land on his feet. El Toro Buey caught the jaguar in the ribs with the flat of his horn and threw him into the bank.

El Yoco rebounded and sprang to the bull's back again. The bull did not give him time to take hold. He bucked in a spin that twisted and swapped ends with each jump. The bull's hide rolled and twitched under El Yoco's claws. El Yoco fell awkwardly to the ground inside the spin and flattened before the bull's scooping horns. The bull rolled him along the ground and El Yoco punished his nose and forehead. The bull bucked over the top of El Yoco. El Yoco slashed him from his briskit to his thighs, but the bull stomped El Yoco in the back with both hind feet. El Yoco waited, his muscle and nerve impassionately61 it relaxed, ears flattened against his head, mouth open, teeth unsheathed.

El Toro Buey charged him again. The jaguar dodged the horns and went for El Toro Buey's throat, swinging his full weight from jaws he set close above El Toro Buey's jugular and windpipe. El Toro Buey tossed his head so high his front feet left the ground and the jaguar came loose with his mouth full of black hide. El Toro Buey caught the jaguar again the instant he hit the ground. He drove a horn into the jaguar's chest and tossed him so high the jaguar spread his legs like fans in the air as his body stiffened with its inability to take action until it returned to earth. He rolled with his impact on the ground and did not turn to meet El Toro Buey again. He ran away. El Toro Buey stopped, refusing to chase after a cowardly enemy. El Toro Buey challenged the jaguar again.

El Yoco slowed to a walk and went on without answering or looking back. The only sign he made that showed he knew El Toro Buey still wanted battle was the flattening of his ears, listening for pursuit.

El Yoco walked on to a high den he knew would be cooled by thick pine cover during the day. He lay down to rest and clean his wounds, soothe his sore places. He had fought and lost. He was in worse pain because he lost. His proud tawny cleanness had been flawed.

* * *

Lucrecia caught El Toro Buey when he came back to the house. She held the oil lamp high while she examined him. Dark blood splashed underneath him when he turned for her. He was so completely wet and shiny with blood that Manuelito thought at first the great toro buey had been down in a mud wallow. The man could not distinguish the color of the wetness in the moonlight. The smell of blood was strong. Lucrecia made Manuelito bring water from the kitchen and she washed the bull. She pressed striffing to the neck and shoulder wounds. She saw strips of hide hanging slack that she would need to sew back in place in daylight. She needed medicines for infection. She hoped Juan Vogel had livestock medicines with him, but herbs would do until she sent for them. She would go early to find zabila, a plant she could turn into a gelatin poultice for the worst wounds. She would heat the fat leaves of zabila on coals until the sap oozed into a clean jelly. She would apply them to hold down the infection the twenty knives of El Yoco's claws would cause.

She led El Toro Buey to his stall and tied him to the manger while she and Manuelito patched the boards to keep him in. Manuelito climbed to the loft to fill the manger with feed. He held up a bundle of corn fodder and looked confusedly around in the moonlight.

"And the little mother horse?" he asked, worried. "And the filly? Where will they be fed?"

"They're gone, Manuelito," Lucrecia said patiently. "We'll look for them in the morning. Throw a bundle for them outside the corral and come on to the house. You'll have to stay with the boys in the morning while I look for herbs. Then you must hurry and bring the Martinillo. El Yoco will begin killing now that he's been made to look foolish. He will need to convince us we lacked respect for him and he is better and stronger than we are. Martinillo will have to stop him before he begins a slaughter to show how great he is."

"My poor burrito, " Manuelito said, looking at the bundle of tasol in his hand. "He is tied all by himself on the trail without his supper. I don't even think I unpacked him."

"Don't you remember, Manuelito?" Lucrecia asked.

"No," Manuelito said, sorrowfully, almost weeping.

"You probably did. Don't worry. Come on to the house and have your supper. You'll have your coffee. You can have a traguito of the Martinillo's good mezcal before supper and a leaf of tobacco afterwards. We'll try to remedy everything, but not until morning."

* * *

The buckskin mare raced away to the place nature had fixed in her instinct for reunion with her foal, the place where the filly had last nursed. She did not find her colt. At Gilaremos the vaqueros caught her and one of them led her back to Las Animas. She was too tired and nervous to be ridden, too sick to be kept in a cow camp.

6

Adán Martinillo stopped on the tracks of his bay filly by a large nopal. His friend, Manuelito Espinoza, was with him.

"The filly turned back here, Manuelito," Adán said. He squatted by the track and rested. Manuelito squatted on the other side of the track and began building a cigarette from tobacco and corn leaf Lucrecia had given him that morning when she sent him for Adán.

"I think she headed home. I'll probably find her at Rancho Quemado. Maybe Lico caught her." Adán watched Manuelito lick both sides of the corn leaf, relishing it. "I came by Rancho Quemado early and Lico's woman said he was asleep, so I didn't speak with him," Manuelito said, pulling and smoothing the leaf gently. "I didn't see the filly and I didn't see my burrito. "

"But didn't you say you tracked the burro to the cliff of Carrizito, Manuelito? Don't you remember?"

"Ah, yes, I did. But I lost the tracks. I couldn't follow them by the cliff. Too broken and steep. I could have rolled off ."

Manuelito rationed himself a portion of tobacco from a plastic bag and carefully began to roll it in the leaf. Adán knew Manuelito could not be altogether present at any conversation while he was performing the operation of rolling a smoke.

"Did you find your lumber and the burro's packsaddle?"'

Adán asked, to break the spell the rolling of the cigarette was
causing.

"¿Como? What?" Manuelito asked.

"Is the burro still carrying his pack?"

"I found the cargo and packsaddle scattered in Arroyo Hondo. I found blood. My burro ran from the place I left him. Poor little burrito. He doesn't know running. I followed his tracks as far as I could. I didn't see the track of the tigre, but then the Arroyo Hondo is very rocky."

"He's probably gone home to Las Animas by now. I'll find him eating corn with Lucrecia. I'll track the filly and I'll look for my burro."

"Yes, I remember now. I was using your burro. Maybe I didn't find him because I was looking for the track of my burro. That's fine. My burrito is probably ready to come home now. He doesn't like to stay away from me and my hermanito, Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela. My burrito is not mutrero. He doesn't like to run away."

"I understand. I'm going now. I'll see you in Avena tomorrow."

"With the Grace of God," Manuelito said. He did not rise when Adán began to walk away on the tracks of the filly.

"I'll just rest here while I smoke my little leaf," he said when Adán was out of hearing.

Adán followed the tracks on a straight line toward Las Animas. He climbed the mountain above Limón. He stopped to breathe and looked down on the hacienda. He thought of how much life and death, fear, flight, and joy had passed by those old houses since they were abandoned for being too far away from life.

Adán walked on to a high plateau covered with pine.

The ground was soft with pine needles. The tracks of the filly were deep from running. He saw the track of the tigre with them. Then he saw his bay filly. She was lying flat on her side the way colts sleep in the sun. His filly was lying too flat to be alive and sleeping. She had that final flatness all dead creatures assume the instant they begin turning into dirt again. Adán squatted by her. She had been killed so suddenly, so expertly, that she was almost still alive. Adán felt her life must surely be close nearby. This killing proved to Adán that the jaguar had spoiled. He had left evidence of how fine an assassin he was. The good and beautiful in El Yoco had become so full and rich that it had spoiled, become rancid, and would cause sickness from now on.

Adán sighed. He admired the tigre. Adán liked to share the Sierra with the wolf, the coyote, the lion, the eagle, the tigre, as was natural. Adán had felt privileged when he had first seen El Yoco. He was in awe of the range, the strength, the health, the unconscious, easy grace of the tigre. He admired the good humor of the healthy jaguar, the good humor of the strong being who disdains using his strength against the small or the puny unless he must eat. This tigre hated the filly, killed her for vengeance, and left her to rot.

Now El Yoco would have to be killed. No man was a match for El Yoco. Adán must learn more about him. He had to determine how a man in huaraches with only a single-shot .22 rifle was going to run a machine like El Yoco to ground. He only had his hunter's and vaquero's axiom to guide him: "Mas vale el paso que dure y no trote que canse. Better to use a pace which endures than a trot that tires."

He would begin by tracking El Yoco from this first crime. He would keep his own pace and try never to leave the track, even when he heard of new kills El Yoco made further along, kills Adán could go to for a fresher track, In this way he would learn the habits of El Yoco. One day he might be able to intercept El Yoco before he killed.

Adán unsheathed his knife and skinned the filly. He saw no reason for a good hide to go to waste. He would have jerked and dried the meat if he had found the filly sooner. Meat was meat. The filly was a filly to be admired and enjoyed, even loved, only as long as she was alive. As soon as breath left her she was meat, if she had not died of sickness or hunger. He folded the hide, tied it with his reata and slung it over his shoulder.

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.

The bull was hot. The slope of the mountain was almost vertical. At a switchback he stopped and shook his horns, arming himself for another fight. Juan Vogel had made the turn on the switchback and was above the bull. He gave slack so the bull could follow his horse. An oak tree stood between the bull and Juan Vogel. Adán climbed to get ahead of the bull and entice him up the trail. He waved his hat under the bull's nose. At the same time Manuel Anaya spoke to the bull from too close behind him. The bull shied away from Adán, wheeled in the trail, saw Manuel Anaya, and charged him. When he hit the end of the slack reata he jerked Juan Vogel's horse off the trail. The horse plunged over the top of Adán and landed on his back below Adán. Adán looked up and Juan Vogel was in the oak tree holding the bull off Manuel with a wrap of his reata on a limb. Manuel ran down the hill without looking back.

"¡Qué jodido!" You men should mark all the trees from here to Avena and saddle trees instead of horses for this sort of business," Adán laughed. He was sitting peacefully on a rock letting his legs dangle comfortably while the other beasts and men strained their lungs for air. "I swear, since you caught that bull, you've spent more time in the trees than you have in your saddles."

"We've still got him. That is all that counts," Juan Vogel said. He stood down on the trail and took another wrap of the reata around the limb while Manuel caught the bay horse.

"Why do you want him up at Avena?" Adán asked. "I thought you wanted to gather all your cattle at Gilaremos."

"To gentle him. We're going to break his bones, fry his blood, pepper his meat, and eat him. By then he'll be gentle," Juan Vogel said resolutely.

"In that case you'd better drink his bile too," Adán said.

"You'll have to make yourselves as mad as he is to get a fang into him."

"Tonight. This night we'll eat his liver," Juan Vogel said.

"And in the morning we'll eat his tripe in a stew."

Juan Vogel mounted his horse and dragged the bull up the trail. Adán let them go. He walked down to the ravine to look after Manuel's mule. The mule did not move when Adán walked up to him. The mule had being a mule in his favor if he was to survive this gutting. As a mule he had a good sense of self-preservation and he was not likely to panic now that his excitement was over. Adán did not unsaddle him. He wanted him to stay warm. He found his blanket, morral, and bule. He washed the mule's innards with clean water from his bule, put them back inside the belly and plugged the hole with a slab of jerky wrapped in a piece of moistened flour sack. He tied his blanket over the mule. This was all the help Adán could give until Juan Vogel and Manuel came back to sew him up. The jerky would keep the innards from falling out if the mule stayed quiet.

Adán started for the hacienda at Limón in the dusk. He arrived there in the dark before the moon had risen.

7

At Limón Adán built a fire under the portal of the main building and took a swallow of mezcal while he warmed his supper. He was eating when the moon rose behind a tall mesquite tree in the corral.

He felt uneasy looking at the dead mesquite in the moonlight. He wondered which limb had been the one his Tio Pascual had used to hang the verdugo, the executioner he caught after the revolution. The verdugo was a big Mayo Indian from the coast who had served as executioner both for Federals and for Revolutionaries, whichever side happened to be winning. He was on the wrong side when the war finished. Adán's Tio Pascual had been jefe de armas, chief of arms, for the revolutionary troop of the region. He caught the verdugo at Avena. He and the remainder of his troop had surprised El Verdugo when he walked out in the morning to relieve himself and had stolen him away from his partners, a squad of Federal troops leaving the region. Tio Pascual had no enmity left in him for the federals, but he felt El Verdugo had not quite finished his business in the Sierra, the business of his own hanging.

Tio Pascual brought El Verdugo to Limón. A trooper asked Pascual what they were going to do with El Verdugo during the night. He wanted to know the safest place to hold the man. Tio Pascual said he didn't know but just to hang him from the mesquite where he would be safe while they decided. El Verdugo kneeled, begged and cried until they hung him in the tree by the neck. The next morning they resolved what should be done with him. They buried him.

Tio Pascual had not meant to frighten El Verdugo or to torture him with fear. He only meant to soften the shock and seriousness of death by saying what he said and executing the man immediately. We all have to die, it just happened to be the time for Mayo verdugo. As a professional executioner who loved his job, El Verdugo should have been the last man to miss the good humor of Pascual.

Maybe El Verdugo had come back to haunt Limón as El Yoco. Why not? Indians believed the devil took the form of a jaguar to demand tithes of the living. Indians had sacrificed lives to him because of this fear of him.

Adán leaned against a post close to the fire and folded his arms over his knees. He missed his blanket but felt more secure knowing Manuel's mule was warm. He did not lie down because the fire would attract scorpions and centipedes. He looked once at the sky to tell the weather, closed his eyes, and was asleep.

In the long night under the clear moon he was awakened by a cold wind whining in the portal and swirling fine dust over him. For some time during his first sleep he had been hearing the sound of breathing. He thought the sound came from inside the house. He realized the breathing had become hoarser since he first became aware of it on the edge of his sleeping. The breathing was ragged and was so close he felt he would soon even be able to smell it. The breathing stopped. Adán, fully awake now, could hear no breathing but his own. He felt he must have dreamed the breathing. He still smelled the breath of the dream, the breath of El Yoco. A ghost must have a breath that smelled of putretied blood like the cave of El Yoco smelled. He rose and replenished the fire. He rolled a cigarette for company. He seldom smoked. He used tobacco to keep away hunger, or loneliness, to calm his excitement when he was hunting, or when he wanted to remember Lucrecia's warm hearth. Adán heard a rhythmic sound of footsteps. The sound came from the high loft of the house where traps, tack, plows, distillers, yokes, and packsaddles were stored. The step sounded the length of the loft, stopped and dragged as though turning around, and then began again after a soft, hoarse sigh. Adán felt his goose flesh rise. The loft was long. Another pause, a sigh, and the hackles on his neck stiffened. He smiled and looked at the tip of his cigarette. He squatted, unmoving, by the fire.

"Onk!" Adán heard. The sound was a gentle, chesty intake of painful breath. "Yiiiiiiiiii--onk!" he heard again. The light of the fire played on the door. The latch was hanging open. Lock and hasp had been broken. He stirred the fire. He opened the door and stepped back. The eyes of Adán's burro reflected fire from the room. The burro rubbed against a loose upright pole which stood in the center of the room to hold sagging boards of the attic floor. The pole had been nailed to the boards but no longer supported them. It swung from the boards like a broken leg and the top of the pole had made the stepping noise with the attic boards as the burro made it swing. The burro's shoulders, neck, loin, and hips were covered with long, deep, parallel slices as though a butcher had ridden him while he carved him with a long knife to mark him for the cuts of meat he preferred. El Yoco had done the carving. He must have made one pass over the burro and let him go as evidence of the violence he could do to any man or beast who thought he could loiter near a trail El Yoco was using.

Adán drove the burro down the hill to water. Someone had nearly caused the burro to die of hunger and thirst when he had gone away and left the door of the hacienda open. The burro had gone in for shade or sanctuary and the door had closed on him. The burro drank at the spring and walked into the lime grove. Adán went back to his fire.

He found the burro dead in the morning. "Pobrecito!"

Adán said. "Amaneciste muerto. Your dawning was with death today." He went back to the portal and made coffee. He inspected the inside of the room the burro had been in, saw that valuable articles were missing, secured the door so it would stay closed, drank his coffee, and left Limón.

He followed the jaguar's track all day without getting far from the small cave where El Yoco had licked his wounds. El Yoco only meandered from cool stream to cool shade that day. He had not left tracks that lined out and were easy to follow. He had made many tracks in the places he had stayed and then he had doubled back, crossed and recrossed his own tracks, and covered his trail effectively with his own tracks.

At sunset Adán topped a pass that dominated the high mesa of Avena. The center of the mesa was a flat-bottomed bowl. The Vogel hacienda was in the center and surrounded by plowed fields and orchards. A side of the bowl above the hacienda was occupied by the homes of the hacienda vaqueros and a public square, a fountain, and a community building. Adán walked down to the hacienda to rest and to get some of the fresh beef of the brown bull.

Juan Vogel, in his leggings, his spurs jutting behind him, was on his knees using an iron bar to break hard-packed ground around some young peach trees in the patio. Vaqueros were sitting on a rock wall watching him. Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela was breaking the tight clods with a rock. Miguelito, a small Guarijía Indian, was leading a burro bearing a canvas bota of water from the well for the trees.

The gored mule and the bay horse were eating corn in a trough made from a hollowed log outside the rock wall. Adán stopped and leaned on the wall to watch them eat and to examine the mule. The two animals ate with respect for one another. The mule's belly had been sewn and he was eating slowly, keeping his eyes closed in contentment as though his guts didn't hurt him at all. His eating was a good sign that Adán's first aid for gored mules was working. Juan Vogel's bay horse was eating with great relish and method. He was a real eating machine. He did not lift his head from the trough. The tough front edges of his lips picked portions of corn and mixed them with saliva. His back teeth ground com softened by saliva. Hard corn frothing with saliva rolled from the corners of his mouth back to the trough to be picked up again and passed to the jaw teeth for further grinding.

Adán laid his morral, bule, and rifle on top of the wall before anyone noticed him. He climbed into the patio.

"Good evening," he said.

"Good evening," the men on the wall answered before they knew who had spoken. The vaqueros were surprised to see Adán. They showed this by not smiling or changing their expressions in greeting. They looked at his bule, morral, and rifle and then began, in the style of the serrano, to watch his every move with admiration and curiosity, in the way a crowd watches a flashy player the first moments he enters a sporting game.

Adán stood before each man in turn and shook his hand, though he had been working with some of them only a few days before. He turned away from the last man, walked across the patio, and shook Juan Vogel's hand.

"Don Adán, El Señor Cazador, " Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela greeted him. He was calling Adán "Lord Hunter" in seriousness. He had been calling Adán "Lord Hunter" for years and it no longer embarrassed anyone.

"Here, Lord Hunter," Juan Vogel said, rising stiffly from his knees and handing the bar to Adán. "Break up the packed tracks around this last little tree. My back is tired."

"Why not?" Adán said, taking the bar and kneeling.

"I've been breaking wind for nothing all day. Maybe my farts will help move an iron bar."

"I have your blanket, cousin," Juan Vogel said. "I think the mule will heal."

"I only came in to get some meat and tell Manuelito not to search for my burro anymore."

"Manuelito has been searching for the burro and hoping he would come in."

"The burro is dead. El Yoco sliced him up like a slab of bacon and let him go. The burro went all the way over the mountain and down to Limón to die. He was in the house. Someone broke in and left the door open. It shut on the burro. I discovered him and let him out last night, but he was dead when I found him this morning."

"We have a human cebado ravening the Sierra now," Juan Vogel said. "A murder was committed here yesterday morning."

'Si, Don Adán," Don Panchito said. "Chombe Servín killed Casimiro Delatorre as he came down the trail from Las Tunas yesterday."

"Killed him? Why?" Adán asked.

"No one knows," Don Panchito said. "Chombe was working in the orchard for me. He shot Casimiro from behind a quince tree as Casimiro came down the hill singing a song."

"I think that Chombe would kill for no reason except he was armed and something moved and sang," Juan Vogel said, lighting a cigarette. "Most men are stupid when they are armed. The heavier the weapon, the denser the brain."

"¡Ah, Dios!" Adán said. "I knew Chombe didn't have brains in that tiny squeezed head, but I didn't think he was a killer."

"¡Pues, lo venadió," Juan Vogel said. "He ambushed him like you would a deer. He used his father's .30 carbine."

"How do you know it was Chombe?"

"I almost saw him do it," Don Panchito said. "He came here early in the morning and asked me for work. I sent him down to rebuild the rock wall and I watched him. He carried the .30 to the orchard with him. He aimed the rifle at everything that moved. He was unhappy. I saw Casimiro coming down the trail. He was hurrying and singing, the way he has always done. I went inside and heard the shot. I thought Chombe might have shot a deer in the orchard. The deer he shot was Casimiro. I saw Chombe run across the field. He ran through the gap at the bottom where women were washing clothes. The women came by here pale as church statues. One of them, Dona Chayo, saw him do it."

"Why did he come to Avena, anyway? Doesn't he live with his parents at Macarena? He was minding their store when I saw him last," Adán said.

"He stole his father's money and horse and left," Juan Vogel said. "We spoke to his father by telephone. He's probably the one who broke into the house at Limón. Which room was the burro in?"

"In the middle room."

"Did you see my machete and provisions, cousin?"

"No, but I thought you might have sent for them from Gilaremos."

"Chombe probably has them."

"His father will have to pay for the objects that have been stolen," Don Panchito said.

"¿Qué va pugar? What would he pay?" Vogel said cynically. "The man is bad pay when he has honorable debts. He'll never recognize a debt of Chombe's. Besides that, this will cost him his ranch and cattle, his goats, mines, and his marijuana crops, and he still won't keep Chombe from jail. The law is going to ruin him. Chombe will be sent away for twenty or twenty-five years at all cost. He has no defense, but his father will have to pay for a trial and for the loss of a life with hard money."

"¡Válgame! Bless me!" Adán said softly, expelling his breath as he stood up. He leaned the heavy bar against the side of the building. Its duty had been performed in the saving of a peach tree and it was too heavy to hold with news of murder.

"Adán, you must have barely missed seeing Chombe yesterday," Juan Vogel said. "He might have played the sniper with you too."

"What could that masturbator have done to me? I've known him all his scanty life. If I had seen him and known what he did I'd have taken him to the authorities in Chinipas. He would have to obey me."

"Did you see any cattle?" Juan Vogel asked. "If you keep following El Yoco, you're going to be seeing a lot of country we don't see."

"He's shown me no cattle. With the brown bull you brought in yesterday you probably cleaned the Limón and Teguaraco regions. How was the meat of the mean brown bull?"

"He was fat. We still have plenty of his menudos left for supper. His innards, brains, heart, liver, and cods were tender enough. I doubt we could have chewed his steaks. Every step he took up the mountain from Teguaraco was rancorous. The sun is gentling him now. The meat is salted and hanging on the clothesline."

"We'll eat soon," Don Panchito said. "Come in for coffee and a strong drink. You've worked hard today. Miguelito!" he called. "Bring one more bota of water for the house after you water this tree."

Adán and Juan Vogel walked across the portal. Juan Vogel dragged his spurs tiredly. Don Panchito brought a cachimba, a lamp fashioned from a can. The lid had a small hole in the center. The can was filled with oil and a wick inserted in the top. The cachimba gave off a thick upright flame that poked black smoke at the ceiling.

Dona Chayo, Manuel Anaya's wife, was in the kitchen to serve Adán and Juan Vogel their supper. Don Panchito's huaraches slapped and shuffled against the smooth earthen floor. He brought tin cups and a demijohn of mezcal. He shoved the cups clumsily onto the table and handed the jug to Juan Vogel.

"Serve yourselves, please," he said. "I would do it, but my sight is tender and nearly useless at night."

"You should see the doctor, Panchito. Go to Rio Alamos when the airplane comes back for Julio," Juan Vogel said. "Maybe I should. Maybe I should stay in Rio Alamos and find new work to occupy me. My vision is no longer adequate for these mountains. Some night I'll roll off a hill and break a leg. I hurt a leg a few nights ago because I couldn't see my way."

"At least you should see a doctor. After one hundred and ten years of good vision it seems strange your eyes should fail you now. An inspection of your eyes is in order, I would think."

Juan Vogel turned a completely unscrutable face toward Adán.

"My eyes are only sore. I see well in the daytime and in the early morning before dawn. The Elm caused by the soreness bothers me only at night. Don't believe my tenderness of sight is caused by my age."

"Of course not, Don Panchito. Nor do I believe your lack of the attention of a good doctor, your winters of sleeping on a pallet on the floor of the commissary, your months without bathing, your meager diet, your habit of never using a coat, or heating the place in which you sleep could cause you any infirmity. No doctor can improve on your health since none that I know would believe a man could live one hundred and ten years the way you do."

"Excuse me, I hear someone," Don Panchito said. "I'll attend to him. I'm expecting Don Julio, your cousin, from Satebo."

Miguelito, the Guarijía, began passing through with buckets of fresh water. He filled tubs in the kitchen and olla.; in the rooms. He turned the burro in the light of the kitchen door and led him away to remove the empty bota. He came back into the kitchen. He was short, walking stiffly straight. His blunt toes in their huaraches seemed to be part of the dust at his feet. He walked up to Adán, removed his hat, and offered his hand. He did the same for Doña Chayo. He did not look directly into the face of anyone. He stepped back away from the light of the cachimba. He used a straight bang of hair on his forehead to shield his eyes. He sniffled and looked to see if the men had noticed him sniffle. He did not want them to notice any untoward sounds that might come involuntarily from him. Adán saw that Miguelito was suffering from the new grippe that was spreading through the mountains. The only time Adán had seen Miguelito ill before had been when he had fallen from a cliff while taking a panal of honey. Miguelito had broken nearly every bone in his body. He never saw a doctor and had been healed by his mother. Now the sniffles seemed to overwhelm Miguelito's face as though some impossible, calamitous misfortune was happening to him.

Dona Chayo brought a chair and faced it toward the table for Miguelito. He sat in it and glanced blankly around, his attention turned inward upon himself, fighting the grippe. He coughed a dry cough that hurt, and the blank look changed to mild fear in his eyes. Juan Vogel looked at him.

"You have a cough, Miguelito? Are you sick?"

"A little bit sick," Miguelito said quietly.

"You have the grippe," said Juan Vogel unmercifully.

"Yes, the grippe," Miguelito stifled a cough. He looked toward the door as though it might be an escape route from the cough he held down, a cough that was growing in his chest to overcome him.

"What have you done for it? What medicines have you taken?"

"Water. I have taken water. We have no medicine. The herbs did not grow this year."

Adán saw perspiration on Miguelito's face. He had never seen Miguelito sweat, not even on hot days when he worked hardest pounding maguey heads into pulp for the distillery at Guasaremos. Juan Vogel examined his thoughts patiently. The room was silent and music was heard from a home on the hill above the hacienda.

"Now the music," Dona Chayo said crossly. "They have decided to celebrate the feast of Los Dolores, the seven sufferings of Our Lady. If they did not have pains and sufferings and murders to celebrate they would invent an ascension of some little borrachito, drunk, into heaven."

Adán looked at the woman. She seemed taller and thinner than she had ever been. As she grew older the skeleton in her seemed to grow more imposing. The long, soft fingers he had held in salutation were kneading and guiding flour dough. The woman was Adán's age. They had grown up together. Manuel Anaya, her husband, was old enough to be her grandfather. Dona Chayo had become known as Dona because of her old spouse. She was catching up to her husband in age by making herself look and act older each time she saw Adán. Adán knew her to be a good woman. Her lips were as bare and beautiful as two pine needles side by side. Her face was perspiring healthily from her work by the stove. Chayo never had a fever except for goodness, truth, and hard work.

"An epidemic," Juan Vogel said, rousing himself from his pensive silence. "Do you suppose we are having another epidemic of the grippe like we had years ago?"

"Many people are sick," Adán said. "People like Miguelito are sick who have never been sick in their lives."

"Epidemics of drunkenness is what we have," said Dona Chayo calmly. "Wait and watch the epidemic run its course. Now we have music up on the hill. In about an hour we'll have a river of lechuguilla to quench the drouth and brave musicians to prevent starvation. In the morning the river will be dry and all the head sickness and bellyaches will be blamed on an epidemic of the grippe."

"I could give you an injection of penicillin, Miguelito," Juan Vogel offered. "This would stop any infection to your lungs and the rest of your system. This would halt your aching."

"No!" Miguelito said. "I don't know injections."

"No, of course not," Juan Vogel said. "An injection is a cure for yoris, white people. You are only an Indian."

"Si," Miguelito said softly. He sighed, relieved.

"You know pills, though."

"Si."

Juan Vogel left the room and came back with his saddle-bags. He opened them in the poor light and found a bottle of candied pills. He spilled a few into his hand and gave them to Miguelito. He found a long tube of Seltzer tablets and gave some to Miguelito. Miguelito took them without changing the blank, inward regard of his eyes. Dona Chayo filled a cup with water, gave it to Miguelito and showed him how to prepare the Seltzer. Miguelito did not look at the cup while the tablet dissolved and sprayed small white bubbles on his hand, and Adán knew he was enduring the fizzing against his will but trusting Juan Vogel because Juan Vogel had ordered it. He shifted his hold on the cup when the base of his thumb seemed to be getting more spray than was comfortable for it. The instant the tablet stopped fizzing, he drank the water, returned the cup to Dona Chayo without looking at it, and left the kitchen.

A short, fat, pale, bareheaded man followed Don Panchito into the kitchen. He wore a small square mustache under his nose and thick tinted glasses in front of his eyes. He was Julio Vogel. A deep, good-humored voice issued from him as he walked around the kitchen shaking hands. Dona Chayo placed a chair near the table for him.

"A swallow for you, young man," Don Panchito said, sloshing lechuguilla over a cup.

"Don't spill it, compadre. After all, it is rare," Julio said, laughing in his deep voice.

"What have you brought from pavement land for the Sierra, Julio?" Juan Vogel asked.

"Heh! Myself was enough," said Julio. "Myself and the good wishes of your wife and family and their questions about when you are coming home."

"¡Lastima avión! A shame to waste the pay load of an airplane on a cousin bearing empty good wishes. You could have at least come with enough medicines and provisions to load one good mule."

"The airplane was overworked bringing me. It will be coming again in a few days to pick me up, though. I'll be talking to the pilot by radio from Satebo. I'll have him bring anything you need. Just write down your requisition and I'll radio it in."

"I have an important requisition. This requisition will solve all the problems of my cattle in the Sierra. My requisition will cure hunger, sickness, and solve the problem of our need for rain."

"Well tell me what it is and I'll order it. This is the advantage of having radio in the Sierra." Julio began talking solely to Adán because he saw Juan Vogel was not listening to him. Juan Vogel kept a bright gaze on his cousin while he absently plucked hairs from his broad mustache.

"I talk, as I say, each morning to my home," Julio said to Adán. "I have often advised our cousin to install a radio here at Avena. At the very least it would serve him in emergencies. But I never have convinced him of the value of the miracle of communications of the twentieth century. He is worse for not having them because he has much more business with banks and farms in Rio Alamos than I."

"You could have brought my requisition on this trip and not endangered or displaced your foolish body or my family's good wishes," Juan Vogel said.

"It would have to be small. We were overloaded. Tell me what it is. I'll send for it. I promise."

"A good sharp skinning knife. A knife to cut the throats of my cattle and stop their suffering and stop my need to find pasture and water for them. A knife to save the hides before they spoil and dry in the sun."

"Heh! As usual you exaggerate, cousin. We are only two months from rain. We'll survive because we always have survived. I grant you that this year we've had more hardship than usual, but we will tough through it. We're as accustomed to drouth as we are accustomed to floods, predators, Agrarians trying to take our lands, and lazy workmen."

"Yes, we survive, cousin. You survive as I saw you surviving the other day in Rio Alamos. You were surviving by passing the heat of the day drinking cold beer at the drive-in, seated in your air-conditioned pickup with the windows rolled up, letting a whore play with your pants while the mariachis serenaded you and waiters brought you broiled meats."

"Heh, heh! Wouldn't you? What better way to pass the heat of the day?"

"I admit this is a good way to survive. You have that manner of survival. I, if I had the huevos, the testicles, would use the sharp knife method and would waste my cattle for their hides instead of wasting myself and my people. Don Victoriano, the manager and mayordomo of your ranch, survives by caring for your ranch. Without the ranch you would not need Don Victoriano, or his three sons, or his old wife, or his sons' wives and children, or his three unmarried daughters. Don Victoriano survives by eating corn tortillas and beans and feeding all his dependents the same. He eats game when he has salt. Since you have given him no salt for his personal use this year he cannot kill game and jerk the meat."

"Ah, he doesn't have it so bad. I never get to eat game."

"This year Don Victoriano survived by allowing his only mule to die of a belly bursting with dirt because he ate dirt when he needed salt. Don Victoriano survived by not breaking into the warehouse full of ground salt to which you hold the key. He survives your stinginess and neglect because he is afraid you will dismiss him if he breaks a door down to get your miserable salt. He has this fear and great honesty because he could not bear to think what your grandfather would tell him if he knew he had jeopardized his work as the man responsible for the survival of your ranch and livestock at Satebo. Now tell me, how is he going to plow his corn for tortillas this year without a mule? He has lost a staple of his survival because you did not provide him with salt to preserve and sustain him."

"Heh, heh, heh!" Julio chuckled good-naturedly. "And how do Adán and Don Panchito and Doña Chayo, your employees here present, survive?

"These, my loyal people, at least have salt for making cheeses from the milk of my cows in good years. They get to keep all the cheeses for their provisions and pocket money after I raid their cheese stores and take the choicest ones home to my wife. I advance them salt, which costs nothing in years that are bad, and I prohibit the making of cheeses in those years, so the little calves can have all their mothers' milk. I let my people run a few cattle and a few saddle horses and mules of their own.

They use their own animals to look after my cattle and I am not out the cost of raising their horses and mules. I buy the calves and trained horses and mules and other produce of their stock at prices so low I triple my money when I resell them."

"Heh, heh, heh! And what do you do in bad years when they have no calves, no cheeses, and no horses and mules to use for you and sell cheap to you?"

"In bad years they have cheese salt they can use to salt game, salt their beans and tortillas if there are beans and corn for tortillas. Of course I discount the price of their salt when the good years come back. But at least my people always have salt. It costs them money and sweat, but my salt is never under lock and key."

"How cynical you are, cousin," Julio laughed. "And our cousin Martinillo? Has he seen the tigre? I've been hearing that the Martinillo is going to kill a monster and cut off his ears for us."

"He knows him and has named him El Yoco. The tigre killed his fine bay filly and his fine burro. Your filly was a purebred, was she not, Adán? Of course I know your burro was pure-blooded."

"No. She was only corriente, daughter of the buckskin mare," Adán said, ignoring Juan Vogel's derision.

"I say let the tigres kill the burros and extra horses. The burros, at least, are a plague, eating our cow country barren." said Julio.

"Ah, well, the tigre is wrong to kill our livestock, even though the drouth makes it suffer more before it dies. You see how our cousins in the Sierra survive, Julio? They fight for the lives of even the most worthless stock. We all have different ways of survival."

"But, was it a tigre?" Julio asked, a smile of disbelief under his square, well-kept mustache. "There are no tigres in this region. You must mean you saw a lion or maybe even a gato tigrillo, not a tigre. Ocelot looks very big up close. You might even have seen an onza. The onza is a threat, I know." He winked at Adán and inclined his head slightly toward the Onza, Juan Vogel. "The tigre is no threat here. Even if a real, full-grown tigre came here I would be gratified. The tigre keeps the lions away. A tigre can displace ten lions and calm the preying on our colts and cattle."

"He's a tigre, " Adán said quietly. "He's big and spoiled. He drew our blood. He's our enemy."

Julio suppressed his chuckle. He looked at his mountain cousin with amusement. "And you have appointed yourself as the man to correct him?" he asked. "You have left bed, board, and loving wife to save the region from El Yoco? Aim for an eye or an anus, will you? Heh, heh! Don't damage the skin. The skin of the tigre is worth plenty of money, is it not?"

"It had better be," Juan Vogel said. "Martinillo won't work. He'll have to profit some way by his hunting."

"Then, cousin Martinillo, I promise to buy the hide of El Yoco from you to make sure you make money on this venture. After all, I have many cattle, calves, and colts for you to protect. Also I have always wanted the skin of a tigre by my bed so my feet won't touch the cold floor in the morning. I believe, though, that you are going to find your cebado is a lion or an ocelot. If I'm right, I'll still be happy to buy the hide--at less cost, of course." He exaggerated a sigh. "I hope I won't have to warm my feet on a lesser hide."

"You won't, cousin. I saw the jaguar at Limón. I'm following his track."

"And have you seen him since the, heh, 'depredations'?"

I doubt anyone can identify an animal by its track like you say you do unless you see the animal often."

"Adancito saw the animal, and I saw the track at the killings."

"Your little son, Adancito? How old is he? Not over seven, I'm sure. A child that age could see demons in a church during morning mass. I hope you are not wrong, though. I want the hide. I wish you luck."

"Thank you," Adán said.

A tall young man walked into the room. He was dressed in his clean clothes and wore shoes and socks. He was the vaquero, Che Che, son of Manuel Anaya. He was glowing with drink. He carried a demijohn of lechuguilla. Manuelito Espinoza came into the room behind him. Che Che set the demijohn on the table and walked around shaking hands with everyone. Manuelito watched from a dark corner holding his hands over his mouth, stifling giggles. To him Che Che was bold and familiar with his betters by approaching them with strong spirits in his hand and on his breath and shaking their hands as though he was their equal.

Che Che addressed Adán. "Adán, my friend of hunting, I come from the fiesta of Los Dolores at my father's house."

Look at the size of him, thought Adán. Grown up and offering me a drink. Friend of hunting! He tagged along as far as he could with me all his life, until this minute. Now he wants to lead me somewhere. "Knowing how much you love music and dancing and fresh menudo, Adán," Che Che continued. "I come to invite you to the fiesta. We have sent emissaries to the homes of various young girls. These girls have sent back word that we can expect their presence in the company of their fathers at the dance. You are free to bring your cousins. To begin the celebration, I bring you all a swallow of the strong, the very best lechuguilla it has been our good fortune to introduce this season."

He began to pour the wine into the cups on the table. Julio raised his hand to stop him from pouring into his cup.

"Yes, man," Dona Chayo said to her son. "Very correct. Invite sane and sober men who have only just finished their supper to go up on the cold mountain and get drunk. They have nothing better to do. You have nothing better to do yourself than to drink that gallon and more. No girls are going to come over the mountain at this time of the night to dance with drunkards."

"The girls are coming, Mama," Che Che said, respectfully. "We are only honoring the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows. We have personages visiting Avena and men and women named Dolores celebrating their feast day. We have fresh beef and good wine. My father says we should dance and celebrate."

"Not for me," said Julio. "I had enough drink with that trago Don Panchito gave me. If I drink any more I'll stay drunk for a week."

"Drink up, Don Julio," Juan Vogel said. "We all know how rowdy you become in Rio Alamos drinking in the air-conditioning of your pickup. Don't be afraid. We won't let you get wild. Have a drink with your workers. Show your democratic spirit. We won't let you get into trouble. We won't offer you another drink after you take this one."

Julio chuckled but did not pick up his cup. Everyone else lifted his cup. Che Che stood over them solicitously with his demijohn, ready to pour. Manuelito giggled out loud. "Manuelito! Get a cup and come over here," ordered Juan Vogel. Manuelito walked over and stood by the shoulder of Juan Vogel. "Ah, you old lépera, you wretch, you arrive with momentum, already charged with drink. Shameless! Lecherous! You've been getting drunk, haven't you?"

"¡Qué chulo! How cute you are, my cousin!" Manuelito said, pinching Juan Vogel's cheek.

"Yes, your style is elegant, an example of good deportment this evening, cousin," Juan Vogel scolded good-naturedly. "You've become so beautiful since you grew up and moved away from us, little cousin," Manuelito said. He patted Juan Vogel's breast and caressed his chin with the cupped palm of his hand. His eyes glazed over Juan Vogel's face with affection. "I'm proud of you," he said. He straightened, picked up Julio's cup and poured its contents into his stomach with no sign or action of swallowing and then poured the cup full again in time to drink a toast with the rest.

"To my cousin, Manuelito Espinoza, the Little Thorn," Juan Vogel offered. "The neatest and most irreverent swallower of mezcal in the Sierra Madre."

"Heh, heh, heh," Julio said, happy that Manuelito had relieved him of his drink.

"My cousin," Manuelito addressed Julio. "Your cow, the white Brahma, has a new little calf."

"Which white cow, Manuelito? I have many cows."

"Yes, many. I know them all. This one runs near the cave of La Burra. She is there now with a new calf."

"So? Good. I entrust her to your safekeeping."

"The calf has worms in her navel. I have no medicine to cure her. Have you any medicine?"

"Yes, but it is packed deep in the boxes I brought. I'll dispatch some to you from Satebo."

"Big! Big!" said Juan Vogel. "You dispatch and while you are dispatching, the calf suffers and dies. Medicine dispatched is the same as medicine not given. Murder. Manuelito, take a knife down there tomorrow and dispatch the calf to a better world and save her hide. Your cousin doesn't like to dispense his medicines."

"Heh, heh, heh!" chuckled Julio. "How is that?"

"You have it in your hands!" roared Juan Vogel. "Give the man some medicine. Don't pay him anything, but at least give him the medicine so he won't be miserable watching the calf die."

"All right. In the morning," Julio smiled.

"Manuelito, bring the cow and calf up here in the morning before it is light. You can keep the calf up while you doctor her and you can milk the cow for yourself and Don Panchito," Juan Vogel said.

"I don't believe in milking cows this time of year," Julio said.

"No? You prohibit milking the cows while the calves are healing? Bring the cow, Manuelito, and milk her for your effort. Julio will never pay you for saving his calf."

"Oh, very well, then," Julio said. "You have my permission to milk her, Manuelito."

Adán rose from the table and shook Che Che's hand.

"No parties for me tonight, thank you," he said. He walked out of the room. Don Panchito followed him.

"You wish to sleep now, Don Adán?" he asked. He had been watching for the men at the table to make a move for their beds. "Follow me and I'll attend to it." He unfastened the key ring from his waist. He chose a huge and ancient key and applied it to the rusted lock of the door to the bedrooms off the portal. He lit a kerosene lamp. The large double beds were thick with mattresses lying on the rawhide webbing of the bedsteads. Don Panchito unlocked a trunk full of bedding and laid out clean linen and blankets for the front bedroom. He led Adán through a heavy door to the back bedroom. He made Adán's bed while Adán made a cigarette.

"You sleep here, Don Adán. You'll rest better alone. Your cousins are going to talk most of the night. You'll be in peace here and you can leave as early as you wish without disturbing anyone."

The old man left him and went out through the front bedroom inspecting each detail of the comfort it would provide. These rooms were never used unless a Vogel or a special friend of the family well known to Don Panchito came to the hacienda, but he kept the lamps glistening and full of oil, the woolen Mayo Indian rugs washed and bright, the walls washed with hot water and soap, the floors scrubbed and oiled to keep away insects.

Adán sat on the mattress and looked at the flame in the lamp Don Panchito had lit for him. The lamp rested him. The small blaze was his to use and made him feel at home. All day he had been thinking that he might possibly be a fool. Part of him, the social part that had cousins and responsibilities and slept in clean beds, told him he was probably a fool. Following El Yoco was a suspension of his normal life. Instead of trying to worry El Yoco, he should have cattle of his own to worry about, like his cousins. Instead of Las Animas and one mauguechi he should have a home in Rio Alamos, radios for talk, a school for his children. Responsible people like his cousins were reasoning that El Yoco would discover himself sooner or later and be killed. He did not need to be hunted. A man like Adán who had family and responsibilities and a social life must be after El Yoco because he did not want to work.

Well, his neighbors were not worried that Adán was foolish. They knew Adán was most purposeful when he was hunting. No one in the Sierra ridiculed Adán because he was a good hunter.

Adán heard Juan Vogel's spurs ringing through the other bedroom. He walked into Adán's room.

"Are you asleep? Not even in bed? I thought by now you would be away with the little angels," Juan Vogel said. Adán untied the thongs of a huarache without turning toward his cousin.

"What length of time do you calculate to be chasing tigres?" Juan Vogel asked.

Adán lay down, covered himself, and laid his hat by his huaraches. "Until I stop him, or until he goes away."

"Look, Adán, you aren't going to kill that animal or run him away. All you will do is lose time. I need you. Look, I'll give you a young ox and a mule colt if you'll help me now. In addition, I'll give you a two-year-old mule you can break and train during the roundup. You would have waited a year before the filly would have been big enough to break and train, three years before she would have given you a colt."

"Thank you, Juanito, but no. I've begun this work. How am I to buy off El Yoco? You forget where you are. This is not Rio Alamos. New oxen or fine new muletas won't change the problem of a tigre cebado. Try to remember when you wore huaraches and rode mules that bucked off into the ravines with you. Remember when you broke a mule or killed him. Would you have traded off your bronco mules just because they were hard to break? You don't have to live here any more and you pay to have bronco mules gentled for your saddle. You can pay for every one of your needs, even your need to be a man. With your money you can get respect from all of us. You protect yourself with money. I have to live here and protect my life in my way."

"Personally," Juan Vogel said quietly. "I think the tigre will go away without causing any more harm. I hope so. Try to reason the truth of this situation. The animal killed a small colt and a burro, neither of any real worth. If you had sold me that bull of yours when I offered to buy him he would not have been hurt and rendered unmerchantable. You would have money in your pocket and not be holding rancor for a natural predator."

"My toro buey can still work. He is the companion of my boys, even their protector. Ju1io said he would give me money for the hide of a tigre. Other ranchers will contribute money to me when they see the hide, as they always do when I kill a cebado. You and Julio have the most cattle, horses, and mules in the country El Yoco is prowling. You two will lose the most livestock. He began with killing mine. Do you think he reads brands and is going to leave yours alone?"

"Help me gather the cattle and horses, and no tigre will get them. I'm taking them all to the coast."

"No. How about the small man like me who has only a few head and no place on the coast to go? We can't gather your stock quick enough if he starts preying on it. He can kill a dozen head in an hour if he wants to. He may be killing them this minute and doing you the favor of knifing your starving cattle. You may not need to send for that sharp skinning knife after al1."

"Don't exaggerate, Adán."

"No? No animal could do us that much harm? How about the lioness that killed Julio's entire mule crop three years ago. She kept the mares and colts so scattered and wild that Don Victoriano could not gather them to the house for their own safety. The lioness got them all. How can you tell me to stop? How about the wolves that finished an entire crop of horse colts and mares for you while you watched at Canelas and couldn't believe they were wolves? How can you say I exaggerate? You aren't a serrano any more, that's why. You don't have to husband your stock with your own sweat. You have money. You don't even care to remember how life is here."

"Enough then. Are you going to scold me all night? Go ahead and do what your stubbornness demands. But hurry up so you can help me."

"I'm going early."

"Well, have good luck. Be careful."

"I am lucky. El Yoco has no consideration for me at all. He is unaware of me. If he was aware, how could he mind a barefooted man following him?"

Juan Vogel left and Adán blew out his lamp. Manuelito came into the room. He struck a match and lit the lamp. He didn't seem to notice the heat of the lamp chimney on his tough fingers. He sat on the edge of Adán's bed. Adán roused himself and smiled.

"I brought candy. Do you want candy, cousin?" Manuelito asked, and Adán knew he had come to the room to have a private place and a private person to share his small hoard with. He took a key from a ring he had fashioned to copy the great key ring of Don Panchito. He opened a small tinny lock on a box and raised the lid. He began taking out his personal treasures and laying them out on the bed for Adán's inspection. He had flints for a cigarette lighter, flint rocks to strike sparks against oak punk for fire, good pieces of oak punk hiesca, a flour sack, a tall can with dirty candy sticking gummily in the bottom, a plastic bag, a tiny length of tarnished chain, a comb, an aspirin tin that would not shut, a can of sardines full and untouched, a pack of cigarettes. He shook the can to make the candy change position. He stuck the can close under Adán's nose. "Sweets," he said.

"No, thank you, Manuelito." Adán shook his head to get away from the can.

"All these," Manuelito said. "Take any article you want, any little thing you might want here."

Adán picked up each article and examined it.

"Sardines," Manuelito said, offering the can. "Open the can and eat them. You'll sleep better."

"No, I'll have a cigarette, Manuelito."

"Of course. Immediately," Manuelito tore at the pack. He shoved Adán's nose with his fist when he put the cigarette into his mouth. He lit the cigarette. Adán sat up in bed. Don Panchito came into the room. He was carrying an empty sugar bowl. "What are you doing in here?" he demanded.

"Visiting my cousin, hermanito. Sharing with him, hermanito, " Manuelito said, proudly defending himself.

"Sharing without courtesy. Molesting. Keeping Don Adán from his rest. Come on now and take this bowl to the commissary and fill it with sugar. My patrón is in there wanting coffee and has no sugar, and you go on keeping a working man from his rest."

"Bah! It's my business to look after everything here. You can't do anything. Your eyes don't do you a bit of good. I like to rest and visit sometimes too."

Don Panchito turned to Adán. "He needs to be told to take his own burro to water. He'd leave his burro, his only possession and servant, in the corral six or eight days with no water if he were not told to let the poor animal drink. Now he has asked Don Julio for a cow to milk. How can he be expected to look after another man's cow if he can't watch over his own burro?"

"You'll see when you drink milk," Manuelito said, taking the sugar bowl carefully and going out of the room.

"Don't throw sugar all over the commissary," Don Panchito said, following him and shutting the door softly.

Adán gathered up Manuelito's treasures, placed them carefully in the box, locked it, set it on the floor, and blew out the light.

8

Chombe Servín, riding the tall gray horse he had stolen from his father, felt strong and confident. He had realized his life's ambition. He had killed a man. He had always wanted to kill a man. He narrowed his eyes at the daytime of the world and smiled a smile he knew strong, ruthless men smiled; a grim smile, a mirthless smile men would fear. He practised it while he rode with his back straight, his shoulders set, his neck stiff, and his head tilted to look down at the earth. He cranked his gaze back and forth in front of him like an artillery piece and barely, menacingly, moved his head as though his face were the maw of a weapon and would send all living beings scurrying before it. He felt his very look was enough to kill any being that would face it. He noticed that birds fearfully and unhappily flew away from him and lizards stiffened to helpless immobility when he looked at them. Even flying insects kept away from his look because they thought of dying when he turned toward them. From now on he would be respected as a man who had killed another man and the leveling of his gaze would command attention.

He found that menacing with his gaze came naturally to him. He knew the focus of his eyes could bring a hawk down from the sky. Now who would call him retarded? The jokester of Macarena, a man who was called Juan Puros Ojos, All Eyes, would have a distinctly different regard for Chombe Servín, the One Who Killed a Man.

The day before Chombe killed at Avena he heard El Puros Ojos say to everyone at a card game that Chombe was so retarded he almost was not there. He said this even after Chombe had taken refreshments to the card players from his father's store. Chombe had taken sodas and crackers and canned meats to the card players without the permission of his father. He stole as a favor to Juan Puros Ojos because Juan was a man Chombe admired. Juan was popular with everyone for his comic remarks and always showed Chombe particular attention and affection. Juan knew Chombe stole the refreshments for him.

Then he had looked at Chombe and said, "Look at him. That boy is so puny I could read a  newspaper through his ears."

And everyone laughed but Juan. Juan just looked at him in the same way he always looked at him. Juan had never ridiculed Chombe before. Chombe had admired Juan so much, and Juan had always made pointed, funny remarks about everyone but Chombe. He thought Juan watched him all the time because he was interested in him, saw in him the manliness Chombe knew he was capable of attaining. Chombe was no boy. He was twenty-four years old. Chombe's feelings had been hurt so badly he had wept in front of all the card players. His father caught him weeping as he left the cardroom and regaled him for stealing merchandise and weeping like a baby. Chombe took the tordillo gray horse, the .30 caliber and its box of shells, and his father's cash of three months receipts amounting to $65,000 pesos, and left home with no purpose except to get away. He found his purpose when he saw Casimiro singing blithely on the trail above the orchard at Avena

But his purpose and the power he felt in his gaze was not yet enough to fill his belly. He was hungry. His last food had been some last year's dried quinces Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela had put in Chombe's pockets when he sent him to the orchard to work. He would like to ride the big horse on and on and keep feeling the strength in flexing his eyes, but his belly was not helping him.

He was nearing Juan Vogel's camp of Teguaraco. The Guarijía Indian, Bonifacio, was in charge of the camp. Bonifacio's daughter, Luz del Carmen was twelve or thirteen and well developed, though small in the Guarijía way. Her hair was black and shiny. She was straight of figure, strong and smart. Chombe had been wanting to use her ever since he had seen her running in a game of palillos, a game of stick and ball the Guarijía women played at Macarena. She had run from sunup to sundown and laughed the whole time. She passed his father's store each time the wooden ball was returned to the game's starting point. Chombe had been confined to watching the store while everyone else got to watch and bet on the game. The girl came in after the game with no more strain or fatigue showing in her face than a girl her age would have shown after a game of jacks. She bought a cone of panocha with money a man gave her for winning his bets on the game. She looked at Chombe with no more regard for him than any child would give him. He was only the dispenser of panocha.

He rode to the gate at Teguaraco and sat his horse while Bonifacio's old dog announced him. He sat there and waited for Luz del Carmen to come out and open the gate for him. She did not answer his greeting or look at him while she lowered the poles in the gate so he could ride through. He dismounted and tied his horse behind the house so no one could see him from the trail. He took his rifle and went to the portal and chose a chair to sit in without being asked to do so by the girl. The girl did not turn from her chore of grinding corn with a hand grinder. He laid a stick of wood on the fire under a heavy gallon can of corn boiling in lime water. He sat awhile and watched her grind the corn with one hand while she replenished the mouth of the grinder with more corn with the other. The corn stuck to her soft, wet hand.

Chombe narrowed his eyes and focused them intensely on her back, practicing his killer's look. She did not run. She did not seem to notice him at all. She noticed him less than she did when he was dispensing panocha.

"I want coffee," Chombe said.

"Ahorita, " said Luz del Carmen with patience and little regard for what he wanted. "I have business."

She ground the rest of the corn in the grinder, squeezed the corn off her hands into the grinder, and wiped her hands on a clean cloth. She put the coffee by the fire to boil and went back to her grinding without showing any awareness of the importance of Chombe the man-killer.

"I want to eat," said Chombe. "Haven't you got food?"

"Ahorita. In a little while," said Luz del Carmen.

"When, then?"

"As soon as my father comes for his meal, perhaps at midday."

"You mean, I have to wait until noon?"

"¡. . . saaabe! " she drawled. "I don't know what you have to do. You can do what you want to do, I guess. Wait or don't wait."

Chombe squinted his eyes as meanly as only he knew how and stared at the girl's back. She still did not turn. He began to tire of his squinting. He went to the table, rifle in hand, and got a cup. He went back to the tire and poured coffee for himself. The steam from the coffee almost scalded his fingers, but he did not drop the can or cry out. He was handling himself  better. He swaggered to his chair and swung his leg widely over it and sat sipping his coffee with the back of the chair in front of him and the rifle across his lap pointing at Luz del Carmen. He had not sugared his coffee. He liked a lot of sugar for the taste of his coffee.

"Bring the sugar, please, Luz del Carmen," he said. He was hungry. He had never in his life ordered anyone to do for him, never had anyone who would do for him but his mother, and he was not good yet at ordering people. The girl brought the sugar bowl and handed him a spoon. His fingers touched the girl's soft, moist hand. He looked at his hands. They were filthy, oily, and not from toil. He stank as he had stunk all his life from being too lazy to bathe and too nervous and afraid of people. The girl's hands were clean with her toil. Her dress was clean. Her camp and dishes were clean. Her hair and skin shone with cleanliness. Bonifacio was an ignorant Indian and lacking in reason, but he at least knew cleanliness. When a man was too stupid to make money he at least had to be clean. Chombe finished his coffee and set the cup down. He looked around, a hungry young man, and saw nothing he could eat.

He rose. "I'm going to the arroyo to bathe," he said to the girl's back. "Have you a towel and some soap to loan me?"

"Towel?"

"A cloth to dry myself with?"

The girl measured Chombe steadily with clear, feral eyes. "The sun will dry you. Try the sun for a change." Chombe had always reminded her of the salamanders she saw when the rains made them move from under their rocks.

Chombe carried himself away as straight as he knew how while he swung his rifle with as much style as he could imagine. He went to a deep, clear pool out of sight of the camp, though he hoped secretly that the girl would watch him while he was naked. He thought his muscles were fine from hefting provisions in the store. He disrobed to his shorts, laid his rifle on top of his clothes and waded into the water, his back to the camp, expecting to feel the girl's eyes on his body. He went into the water and liked it on his genitals. He removed his shorts under water, flopped into an imitation of a dive, and made his best motions of swimming as he had seen swimming done. He splashed twice and was engulfed. He splashed with all his might and sank deeper, swallowing water before he could find the ground with his feet. He stood up and spat water in a long, strong, expert stream for a great distance to the bank just as though he had wanted to fill his mouth with water. The girl might have better regard for him if she thought he could swim and could see how well he could spit water.

He paddled and soaked and rubbed sand on himself and climbed out onto a sunny rock. His genitals were stimulated by the sun more than ever and part of them grew and filled and began to bother him. He went back into the water to calm them, but he touched them and the water moved him more in his desire for the girl. He got back onto the rock and could not dry himself fast enough. He saw an old track of Luz del Carmen's on the bank and he wanted to hold her foot. He wanted her foot, her hands, her eyes, her hair and her thighs for his own to use today. He splashed across the stream and put his dirty clothes on. He took his rifle and went to the camp, feeling cleaner, but smelling the same.

The girl was not in camp. He waited and she did not return. He walked around the house, ignoring his horse standing in the sun with a tight cinch, nothing to eat and no water to drink, drying and shrinking in the sun. The girl was not at the house. He went back to the deserted shade of the portal. He was so hungry for food and the girl that he was getting wild. He saw that a large batea, a wooden bowl used to wash placer gold, was gone. The batea had been full of dirty clothes on a chair by the table. Perhaps the girl had gone upstream to wash the clothes. He hoped she had not passed downstream by him. His face and especially his forehead became hot with shame. Maybe she had seen him fondling himself on the rock. He left the portal and walked carefully upstream. He saw her barefoot track on the deep trail. Then he heard her singing over the rush of the water. Hah! Knowing he was naked, she had watched him and then gone to the stream knowing she had aroused him.

In truth, Luz del Carmen bathed and washed clothes every day in the same place at this time, and she had gone this day too with no thought of him or his passions. Her only precaution against him had been to cross the stream where she was surrounded by boulders away from the brush and she could face the trail instead of having it at her back. She was in the sun instead of in the shade. She had bathed and put on a half slip that covered her up to her waist. She wore an old, floppy straw hat and she was bare to the waist. She was kneeling at the stream, singing and scrubbing her cloth on a rock. Her small, full breasts fit tightly between her working arms and she was singing in a high clear voice a song only known to her.

Chombe walked to the stream in full view of her and smiled for her. She did not look up. She rinsed and wrung out the cloth she was washing and stood and folded it over her breasts. She crossed the stream gracefully and walked past him toward the camp. He followed her closely and gorged on the sight of her shiny legs and shoulders, the movement of her tight hips and bottom under the thin slip. She walked through the shade of the portal and into the house. He could not make himself follow her, though the house had no door. He took his chair again and smiled, waiting. When she came out to the portal she was dressed. Her wet hair was combed straight to her shoulders and she smelled as clean as the sunny rock in the stream.

"Ready?" he said.

She did not answer him but went to a green tree in front of the house and hung her wash on its branches. When she came back to put wood on the fire he smiled at her again.

"Ready, now?"

"For what?" she asked, looking at him as though she did not know he was there unless he spoke.

"I'm going. Let's go."

"Go on, then. Good-bye. I hope it goes well with you."

"You're going with me, aren't you?"

The girl laughed. She was unacquainted with cynicism. She was only a small Indian girl, but she knew she was beautiful and she was no fool."¡Si, Chuy! Yes, Little Jesus, my great lord!" she said. She smiled until she had him fooled into smiling and then she sobered into her feral stare to watch his answering smile fade.

"You don't seem to have any feeling at all for me," he accused. "I'm serious."

"Yes, I have no feeling for you," she said, looking him in the eyes and staring him down. This was a special affront to him on this day, the day he had become confident of his killer's gaze. This was worse than her keeping her back to him. He reached for her, feinting, and he scared her. So, she was only another little mud hen of an Indian after all. He set the rifle down and his intent showed truly in his eyes this time. He was no longer feigning or acting a part to himself. His gaze was not the one he had been practicing.

The girl began to shake, but only she noticed it. She was mesmerized. This badness was suddenly happening to her. Her father had warned her to be careful when she was alone in this camp. She did not want to run. She would have to run all day and her father would miss her. She had work to do. This camp had always been a safe place for her.

"My father is coming. He wouldn't leave me here alone."

"Your father is working the roundup at Gilaremos. He isn't coming." Chombe sighed contentedly. The full intention of what he was about to do settled him. "Now come over here to me."

"No."

Chombe caught her hair as she whirled to run. He jerked her to him and grabbed her breast through popping buttons. She kicked her heel up and missed his swelling groin. She bit his arm, not hurting him. He laughed and turned her loose. He did not want to hurt her. He knew she must want him too.

"Little Indian," he laughed, when she faced him. She was tiny and within his easy reach.

"Ah, yes, and you are so blond," she said, because he was not blond. He was darker than she. "Salamander!" she hissed.

"All right, then. What do you want?"

"Leave me alone. That's all."

"No. Understand me. You are going with me. I have money. How much money do you want? What is your price?"

The girl, believing she had intimidated him by biting him, said, "How much did your fornicating mother charge?"

Chombe caught her again and controlled her by jerking and shaking her while he wrenched at her clothes and his own, and the moment he had hoped would be sweet and beautiful turned into a bumping, groveling, grunting struggle that demeaned him. He found himself on the ground with his head grinding against the table leg. The girl had become twisted and dirtied beneath his knees and he was barely able to hold her. Enraged because she had spoiled the goodness of his want for her, he knelt and looked at her, holding her tightly by a handful of hair. She turned away from him and became motionless, relaxed. He poked at her with the thrusts of copulation against her hip and she made no response of any kind. He stripped off the shreds of her clothes and dragged her into the house where bedding had been folded on a chair. He left her in the middle of the floor, unfolded a thin camp mattress and laid it beside her. He lifted her and laid her on the mattress. He looked for her face. It was hidden by her hair. Her eyes were closed. He looked at her body. It looked small and childish. He had never seen a naked female body. The closest he had ever been to one had been a room and an embarrassed jerk of his head away, leaving only a flash of flesh to remember. He had little idea of what to do to satisfy himself with one.

He stripped and knelt beside her. He brushed dirt and mud and ground corn from her body. He nestled against her, tried to tickle her, aroused himself, and mounted her. He lay his head by hers as he searched for her. She howled in his ear, bit it, and ground a mouthful of it as she howled in it and kicked to twist her entire weight over her jaws on his ear. He tried to scramble away and she rode him to the floor, twisting his head away, and chewing and shaking his head by the ear. "No," pleaded Chombe once, shaming himself. He rolled on her and got a hand on her throat. He choked her off the ear and beat her face, crying because of the badness he was doing, until she was unconscious. He found rope and tied her hands to her sides so that she lay across the rope. He tied her feet outside the legs of the table. He tied a choke loop on a long rope to her throat. He raped her continually throughout the day.

In the evening he roused her and made her prepare food for him while he held her naked by the choke loop. Fully dressed, he sat on the chair with its back under his chin and the rifle over his lap and watched her body move, pulling her to him for a better look when she tried to hide it from him. He enjoyed watching the movements of her round buttocks over the runner's thighs the best. He would make them fuller and softer with his use of them, he knew, but they were fine now. He made her eat and then he tied her to the mattress again. He went to the fire and sat with his rifle while he sipped coffee with all the sugar he wanted and rested with a satisfaction that made him smile softly to himself, a smile he had never shown before or would ever show to the world.

The dog began to bark and run toward the gate. Chombe was outside the light of the fire with the rifle and he had no reason to move. He waited, wondering where the dog had been all through the day. He knew he had been in camp. Chombe had seen the dog now and then, but the dog had never bothered him. This was all only a natural happening to the dog, and it was just as natural for people to do. The dogs, the horses, the cattle, all nature fought at this business of the conquest of females. Nature knew he was right to do as he was doing. He was only making himself happy while he had the opportunity. The girl would come to understand this and would learn to like him, follow him, love him as long as he wanted her to. This was only nature. After all, who else would have her now even if she wanted someone else? No one would. She was his now. His to use and keep, or his to use and throw away.

He watched Bonifacio, the Guarijía, come through his gate and walk to the portal. The dog played around Bonifacio's legs. The Indian called quietly for his daughter. He set his bule, machete, and morral down before he saw Chombe with the rifle pointing at him. He did not speak to Chombe. He called his daughter again and went into the house. Chombe stopped him when he tried to untie the girl. Bonifacio knelt with his head down beside his girl. The girl was unconscious or sleeping. Bonifacio finally looked up at Chombe.

"Come outside and we'll talk, Boni," Chombe said.

"Don't act smart or I'll kill you. I'm going to probably have to kill you anyway so be easy on yourself and don't bother me. I'm a sensitive man, I don't like scoldings, and this has been a big day for me. As you can see, your daughter and I are practically married." He could not keep his secret grin from showing now that he had someone to talk to and know his power. This grin was one of pride and happiness in success, a grin modest men try never to show. This grin is so hard to hide, however, in a true moment of fulfillment a man might burst into laughter trying to hide it if he only opens his mouth to speak a modest word. Now, he could not hold back the grin, so he began to chuckle in spite of himself and then to laugh aloud, controllably and carefully, savoring the deep, handsome tone of his laughter to ease the pain of modesty.

"You've disgraced my little daughter," Bonifacio said.

"How so? Did you think her little apparatus was going to go unused all her life? No. Apparatuses are for men to use when they need them. That girl has tempted me for a long time. Today she paid, that's all."

"Little daughters don't tempt men. They could only be a temptation to masturbators like you. No good man will have my girl now after you played with yourself in her."

Angered, Chombe shouted, "I did not play with myself. I had that girl until she began to like it."

"Why is she tied up like that if she likes you so much? Untie her and see how she likes you."

"I'm not ready. Luz del Carmen is the first girl I've ever used. I want to be sure she likes me and will go away willingly with me before I turn her loose. I don't want to force her to go with me. I'm not that kind of man. You know that wouldn't be right. You know me, Boni. I'm not bad. I'm a man. I'm claiming my rights as a man."

"You're crazy. No man rapes a little girl and tries to justify it to her father. If he does he is not a man. He is a criminal, or he is crazy. You'll never be able to call yourself a man now that you've disgraced my girl. You are a masturbating coward. That's the best I can say for you."

Bonifacio picked up his machete and stepped quickly across the fire toward Chombe. Surprised, Chombe did not have time to rise from his chair. He ducked and shut his eyes as he raised the rifle to block the blow Bonifacio aimed at his head. The rifle's trigger guard and lever protected his fingers. The machete sprang away from Bonifacio's hand off the steel of the rifle. Chombe, head and shoulders taller than Bonifacio, beat Bonifacio with the barrel of the rifle until Bonifacio fell unconscious with his feet burning in the fire. Chombe searched Bonifacio's morral and found a bottle of lechuguilla. He drank half the bottle before he smelled the rubber of Bonifacio's huaraches
burning.

He picked the feet out of the fire. He went quickly to his horse and got his reata. He tied Bonifacio's hands against a mesquite horcón, pillar that supported the portal. He clapped dust from his hands, grinned happily, and raped Luz del Carmen again. He went back to the portal to see if Bonifacio had revived so he could be of service. Bonifacio was sitting up. Chombe slapped water into his face and untied the reata from the horcón. He put a choke loop on Bonifacio's throat. "Slide your machete to me with your feet, Boni," he commanded. Bonifacio shuffled on his burnt feet, pushing the machete until Chombe could pick it up without having to overextend himself. He sat Bonifacio down in front of the horcón, tied his feet, and raised them so that Bonifacio was on his back. He tied the reata high to the Y fork of the horcón under the eaves.

"Your machete is dull now, Bonifacio," Chombe said.

"I'll have to sharpen it." He began sliding the machete on Bonifacio's sharpening rock. He took a cup of water from the olla and handed it to Bonifacio. "Don't drink it, Boni. Hold it for me." He sharpened the long machete awhile and felt the edge, looking away from it. "Ah," he said and laid it across the rock easily. "Give me some water." Bonifacio examined the rock and the machete and twisted himself so he could pour the water onto the blade without wasting water, as was his habit.

"How did you use this tool today to get it so dull?"

Chombe accused cheerfully.

"Clearing the mauguechi," Bonifacio said. "I worked all day."

"I thought you were helping Juanito Vogel in the roundup. He's paying you to work his cattle, is he not? You did your day's work for him today, did you not?"

"Not today. Juan went to Avena. He had business there."

"And you took advantage of his absence to work for yourself, even though he is paying you to work for him?"

"Yes. Why should I say more than the truth? I had my own business to finish."

"So you didn't see the vaqueros today, and you skulked away to do your own little mierda of work."

"Yes."

"And you told the vaqueros you would not work today so they would know you were cheating Juanito and working for yourself."

"No. I didn't tell them. I told them I would be suffering the grippe at least for today and maybe for a day or two more."

"Ah, you are a clever man, Boni. You know how to look after yourself. I admire that."

He caused the edge of the machete to ring off the stone. "And where is your clearing?"

"Close."

"You left your tools there?"

"Yes."

"Feel that," Chombe said, holding the blade close to Bonifacio. Bonifacio touched the edge.

"Nooooo. It's dull," Bonifacio said. "I told you, I worked it all day. Also, it struck the steel of the rifle."

"Dull?" Chombe felt the blade and gazed absently at Bonifacio to better sense the fineness of the cutting edge. "I would say it is sharp now. Buena, I don't know. You know your own blade. Give it water and I'll work on it and you tell me when it is sharp."

Bonifacio poured water carefully on the blade again, and Chombe slowly worked it on the stone. He rested and drank the rest of the water in Bonifacio's hand. He filled the cup again. He handed it back to Bonifacio. "Drink," he said. "But save some for the work."

He rubbed the blade softly against the rock, making it ring quietly. He honed the edge down until he was satisfied the blade was sharp enough for his business. He took the water from Bonifacio and washed off the white stone dust that had become a paste on the blade.

"Where did you say this mauguechi was?" he asked.

"C1ose," Bonifacio said without interest in his mauguechi.

"Boni, I'm going to untie your feet so you can walk."

We're going to your mauguechi. I want to look it over to see what we can farm there, you and I."

"My mauguechi will never be your business. Why go there?"

"I realize you are angry, Boni. Don't look for reasons. My rifle is reason enough. Let's be friends. You have my respect. I love you as much as I do my own father. You are my father-in-law now."

"How long are you going to leave my little daughter like that? The animals and insects will eat her. She'll stiffen and cramp."

"Don't worry, Boni. I'm taking good care of her. She's learning a lot the way she is. She had to be tied up in the same way a colt has to be tied in order that she be broken to lead. All young animals with spirit have to be tied and buffeted before they are gentled enough to become willing servants. Even you, an old man loosened by age, are bronco. See how I had to hit you and tie you to make you reason with me?"

"Untie me and we'll reason with me untied."

"Hah! I'm not Juanito Vogel. I'm not going to give you a chance to cheat me. You do as I say at least for a while and then I'll see if I can trust you. You see, I'll tie your hands in front of you so if you fall you can protect yourself. You are already gaining my confidence. I should tie them behind your back. ¡Mas seguro, mas amarrado! The more you are trussed, the better you are tied! But I'll tie them in front of you and trust you. How clever you are, Boni. Let's go."

Chombe followed Bonifacio in the bright moonlight. Bonifacio limped badly on his blistered feet. His white shirt looked blueish in the moonlight and showed none of its stains of dirt, blood, and sweat. Chombe put his head back and breathed the moondust air and looked fully upon the moon. He smiled, feeling the shape of his life. He was taking form for all the world to see just as though his life were a moon. Everyone in the world would hear of him. Young men would want to be like him. Young girls would wait on him and hope for him to use them. He was a bigger, finer being than the moon because he could make people change their lives to suit him. Bonifacio stopped. Chombe walked into the back of the Indian. He laughed.

"What happened?" Bonifacio said.

"I was looking at the fire," Chombe said. "Didn't you see it?"

"Where?"

"Right over the ground ahead of us. That was why I bumped into you. The fire glow had me blinded."

"This is my clearing. The mauguechi. "

"You must have cleared the ground over a treasure. Someone's savings is buried here. The fire I saw is a sign of buried treasure. You know the belief."

"I saw no light and no fire."

"I saw it briefly. A bright light. You must have been looking at the trail because of your sore feet."

"What kind of light? Where was it?"

"In the very center of the clearing, right over that white rock. A red light like fire with a white glow in its center. Don't the people say such lights indicate a buried treasure?"

"They say so."

"Where are your tools.?"

"Under that brush pile."

"Get them. We'll dig out a treasure, my Boni. This is our lucky night. The luckiest night of your life, Boni, man."

Bonifacio walked to the brush pile and uncovered his bar, pick, ax, shovel, and mattock.

"Leave the ax and mattock. You dig and I'll bet we find so much treasure you'll never have to pick up an ax or mattock again."

They walked to the center of the clearing by the boulder. Bonifacio sighed. "Where shall I dig?" he asked.

"Start under the boulder. Move it away. Dig straight down on that spot."

"My hands. How am I going to dig with my hands tied?"

"Pardon me," Chombe said and untied Bonifacio's hands. Bonifacio rolled the rock away and began to dig, groaning and sweating with pain. "Nothing is here," he said, but he did not stop working.

"It has to be there. Believe it. I saw the glow." Chombe grinned at the moon, barely containing his laughter. He laid the machete on the ground. "Do you remember the Indian, Chano?"

"My uncle."

"Well, I've heard Juanito Vogel tell it that Chano sold forty cattle to the Vogels every year for twenty years. They always paid him in hard money. Gold money when the gold alazanes, the sorrel gold coin, was still in use. Later they paid him in silver coin. Chano never went to a bank. He hunted and farmed for all his food. The money for three calves kept him clothed for three years at a time. He lived at Teguaraco where you live now. He buried that money somewhere. This has to be the place."

"How do you know this is the place?"

"I saw the glow, didn't I. Think about it. This has been the most special day of my life. Today I gave away my virginity and did other acts that made me realize my manhood. You had to give away your daughter. Have you ever experienced another day like this in which you suffered so much and lost so much?"

"No."

"No. And yet we are both so calm. You know why?"

"No."

"Because of the recompense, man. We are about to become recompensed. In that ground lies all the savings of Chano, your uncle, and half of it is yours. I want half. I'm your son now and we are both about to become rich. You can bet your life on it."

Bonifacio straightened and rested on the pick handle, debilitated by having to listen to lies.

"Anyway, dig," Chombe said. "Whether you believe it or not. At least, we'll find out the truth about whether or not we've found a treasure."

"I dig because you force me to," Bonifacio said, looking down at the moonlit ground. "But don't lie to me about making me dig for my uncle's treasure. My uncle Chano buried his savings in a cave."

"Where, then?"

"I wish I knew. I wouldn't be the poor man I am who finds himself tortured and hungry if I knew."

"Dig then, if only to relieve your misery."

Bonifacio's digging was sore but constant. The field was rocky. He dug for hours. He dug until his head was out of sight and the moon was going down. Chombe began to worry about not being able to see him, even though dirt surfaced regularly from the hole.

"Have you found it?" he asked. "You are so quiet." He grinned at the moon and picked up the machete.

"In a minute," Bonifacio said.

"Come out and rest, Boni,"

"In a little minute," Boni said, quickening his shoveling. "I'm in the plush-- The digging is very easy here-- Something is down here-- No rock now-- Pure earth-- I'm going down fast now-- I may soon find the money-- All the coins- All for you-- I don't want any-- You can go away in peace-"

"Come out, Boni," Chombe said. He stood at the edge where the shovelfuls of dirt just cleared the brink of the hole and landed softly at his feet. They were coming so fast they seemed to start off the bottom before the last shovelful landed out of the hole. Then Chombe saw what Bonifacio was trying to do. He was trying to tunnel back in soft ground to get out of sight and reach of Chombe and the rifle. Chombe marveled at the athletic feat. Bonifacio had made Chombe believe he was shoveling straight down and had not broken the rhythm of his shoveling as he made the tunnel.

"Come out, Boni. You can't get away from me. I can kill you with the rifle, but come out anyway."

Bonifacio dropped the shovel and folded himself into his hole. He did not answer. Chombe laid his head back and laughed at the moon with delight.

"Come on, Boni. I can bury you. Out!" He pushed a yard of dirt and rock into the hole with his feet. Bonifacio stuck out a leg and Chombe dropped a rock on it. Bonifacio retracted the leg.

"Don't throw rock," Bonifacio said. "You'll hurt me."

Chombe stepped around the hole to see Bonifacio more clearly. Bonifacio was wedged into the hole, his head between his knees, his hand playing with soft, clean, moist dirt by his side. Chombe picked up a long branch from the brush pile and extended it to Bonifacio, prodding him with it.

"No," said Bonifacio, speaking between his knees and not looking up.

"Come out or I'll hurt you with this," Chombe said, levering a shell into the chamber of the rifle. Bonifacio grabbed the limb and Chombe helped him out of the hole. Before Bonifacio got to his feet Chombe swung the machete at the ridge of his spine on the base of his neck. Bonifacio saw the blow and raised his hand to stop it. The blade cut his hand off at the wrist. The hand jumped away and writhed on the ground. Bonifacio hugged the stump against his breast and rolled onto his back with his feet up to protect himself. Chombe, grinning, circled him looking for a clean blow at the neck. Bonifacio looked down at the stump when he saw Chombe holding off striking him again.

"You've disgraced me," Bonifacio accused. "You've taken my hand."

"Think of it," Chombe grinned, "You lost a hand because you wanted to."

"How do you think I wanted to?"

"Put your hand in the path of a machete and you lose the hand. You act like a child who doesn't know how to play the game of rock, scissors, and paper. Put a rock in the path of a machete and you lose a machete. Put flesh out in the path of a rock and you may catch and cover the rock. You gambled flesh against steel and lost a hand. You never played that game? You should have learned that game."

"You've maimed me. How am I to live without a hand? The only work I know is done with two hands."

"Precisely. How can you work now? And how can you live without working? Also, if I leave you alone now you will be in agony until you die. I should go away and leave you for being so stupid."

"No! How could you leave me?"

"I can't stay any longer. I have to attend to Luz del Carmen. You should have let me strike you cleanly with the first blow. You wouldn't have felt any pain at all."

"How could it be stupid not to let you kill me? I don't want to die."

"Well, suit yourself. Die quickly without pain, or agonize. I don't care any more. I'm leaving."

"Wait. I'll let you. How do you want me?" Bonifacio rolled to his knees. Blood squirted under his chin through the fingers holding the stump. He knelt  in front of Chombe. "How, Chombe, please?"

"All right, Boni. Once more, then. Bow your head and don't move. I won't strike hard, but your pain will stop."

"My God," Boni prayed. "Please." He bowed his head.

His hat fell off. His thick hair shrouded his face. Chombe stepped to Boni's side, breathing shortly into lungs already full of hot breath. He felt the warmth of Bonifacio's body through his pant leg.

"¡Yyyyyy vamonos!" he grunted, dismissing Bonifacio and the act at the same time. The word added strength and accuracy to the slice of the blade as it beheaded Bonifacio. He kicked the body backward into the hole as it straightened in reaction. He picked the head up by the hair, saw the gleam of the moon in the eyes and dropped it into the hole. He kicked the hand into the hole. He filled and leveled the hole with Bonifacio's dirt. He stacked the tools carefully over the grave, piled brush over it until the pile was taller than he, and set it afire. He watched oil and pitch ooze in the brush and flash and sputter to an ungovernable momentum, and then he walked away feeling clean and absolved of any wrong that only the moon could have witnessed. He hurried to the camp and washed and revived Luz del Carmen. He raped her joyously the rest of the night.

9

Adán awakened with the crowing of a cock after his second deep sleep. He awoke impatient with himself for sleeping so soundly, and because his nose was running and a cough was trying to intrude on his day. He sat up and was dizzy. He put on his hat, tied on his huaraches, rolled his blanket, and walked outside. He walked by Don Panchito who was lying too still to be asleep on his pallet on the floor of the commissary. Adán went into the kitchen. Coals from the supper fire glowed with still warmth in the stove. Adán stirred them and put water on the range to boil. He took flame from the stove on a sliver of pitch and lit the cachimba.

"I would say good day, but it is still too dark and too long until the light of day," Don Panchito said as he scuffed into the kitchen. He looked to see what Adán had done in his kitchen before he could get up. He waited a moment while full awareness of what needed to be done came to him. He looked around with eyes that had long ago accepted not seeing well in dark, early hours. Adán watched him.

The old man's face had not changed with sleep and awakening as most men's faces change. Don Panchito's face was still dirty and its furrows and planes were smeared with smoke and grime--it looked no different three hours after midnight than it did in the last hour of daylight when the old man had been breaking clods in the patio. How close the old face was to the young peach tree. Both depended for life on the same soil, the same hands, the same broken feet of the man, the skinny legs naked under the billowing loose trousers that were tied at the waist with a strip of feed sack.

"Ah, you put on the water. I'll make you coffee," Don Panchito said. He picked up a hard stick of split firewood from the darkness between the stove and the wall. He poked the kindling into the open door of the firebox, moved it, squirmed it, and bedded it into the embers, looked at it, stooped, and brought up another to lay beside the first. Adán went to the woodpile outside and found two long pieces of oily pitch pine. He put them in his marral. Don Panchito filled his bottle with lechuguilla. Adán filled his bule with fresh water. Don Panchito packed broiled kidneys, liver, and loin in a clean cloth and put them in Adán's morral. When Adán was ready with water, food, reata, and rifle he sat down to the coffee Don Panchito served him. Don Panchito filled Adán's coffee bottle and sugared it for him.

"We have a fire in the forest above Teguaraco," Don Panchito announced. "After you retired, Lico sent word that a fire had started and was burning up the mountain toward Rancho Quemado. We were lucky the fiesta was going on. All the young bucks were here. They weren't tired from dancing because no girls came to dance. They were brave and manly from the lechuguilla and we had no trouble sending them to the fire. Will you be going that way, Don Adán?"

"I don't think so. I'm going east. I don't think my tigre stayed at Teguaraco."

"I thought, on your way, you might carry lunch to the fire fighters."

"No. If I was going that way I would be glad to do it. My reason for an early start is to go east."

"Thank you. It's not important. I'll send Manuelito at dawn. The men are sleeping now anyway. The morning is cold and the progress of the fire is unimportant to them at this moment. They have all day to stop the fire before it tops out and burns the timber."

"It has to be stopped. I'm sorry I won't be able to help. Fire fighting is hard work, especially when a man is raw and thirsty with a mezcal hangover."

"The work you do is as important and demanding as fighting a fire, Don Adán. God bless it with success."

"As far as success goes, God seems to be altogether on the side of El Yoco," Adán said, rising and slinging on his rifle, morral, blanket, and bule. I hope God doesn't always give the signs of his favor with success. If he does we'd better not go against the fire or El Yoco."

"Don't worry, you are doing right," Don Panchito said. "I hope you succeed, whether God is on your side or not."

"Your support is enough for me, Don Panchito. Until later."

Adán stepped out into moonlight that was setting on a cold morning of the high Sierra. He skirted the house on the moonlit side, went out through the gates, and warmed when he stepped onto a bright trail powdered and cut by shod hooves on rock slab. He climbed over the plateau of Avena and stopped to breathe before descending into the deep canyon ground of the arroyos of Teguaraco, Tepochici, and the Mayo river that lay in moonlight below him.

He saw the fire creeping brightly up the mountain from Teguaraco. He skidded and hopped fast down the trail through the vertical cornfields above Teguaraco and went to the place where he had last seen the track of El Yoco. He followed it through thick brush and vainoro to the white rock of the ford at Teguaraco. He built a fire under a mesquite and warmed tortillas and part of the roasted liver and kidneys of the brown bull. He ate well and packed up in time to find the track again across
the ford with the first sunlight.

Through the long morning he tracked El Yoco on the steep, spiny brown hills between Teguaraco and the arroyo of Tepochici. At noon he stopped at the pool of the duck and the hawk. He lay down in the same shady spot over the pool that El Yoco had used when he watched Manuelito worrying his burro on the trail. Adán knew his adversary had rested there. He felt dry and feverish and knew he should go down to the pool and bathe and drink a lot of water, but he lay in the jaguar's comfortable hollow and slept. The sun was only two hours from setting when he awoke and rose to his feet in the same motion. He drank out of his cupped hand as he forded the stream and he picked up the track where he had left it. El Yoco had moved up this trail, the steepest, the most broken trail Adán knew, at a trot. Adán, feverish and tiring, suddenly felt hurried and impatient, too late, too weak for this business. He bent his head and calmed himself. He sipped lechuguilla and moved on in a slow, careful placing of his huaraches that always served him best. He might live one hundred and ten years at that pace. Jaguars never did.

While he moved along, delirious with concentration, the sun, and the catarrh he had caught, he came upon El Yoco's latest kill. El Solitario had crossed El Yoco's path here. El Yoco had left him in shreds. El Solitario had never been great in size, only in temper, but now all that remained of him that was identifiable was his rib cage, spinal column, and head. The white of his bared teeth grinned in his destruction. Adán sighed and squatted in the shade away from the ants and flies feeding on El Solitario. He began to examine the small hollow of ground El Yoco had passed through almost without a pause. El Solitario's hide, flesh, and bone hung from the limbs of a brasil tree. The hindquarters lay in rocks up the hill. Part of the innards were hanging low in the limbs of a vinarama. El Yoco had not eaten any part of El Solitario. He had fallen on El Solitario with all his weapons exploding. El Solitario was not offensive to any but his own kind. He had been no threat to El Yoco.

Adán unsheathed his knife and took a hand of El Solitario's to keep in his pocket. The pads of the hand were large, soft, and black. The claws were long as El Yoco's and always bared. El Solitario had never been able to hide them. He could not sheathe them as El Yoco could sheathe his. They must have bothered him, being so big and always in sight with no place to hide or get out of his way. He could not move without them when he did not need them. Adán stood up. He felt like groaning, lying back, and going to sleep on the hard ground near the flies and ants. He was sick. He ached. His eyes were dry and sensitive to the glare of the sun on the land. He squinted his eyes and moved up the trail. El Yoco had not fed, reclined, groaned, or slept here. Neither would El Martinillo. El Yoco had gone purposefully toward the buttes of Contreras Peak. Adán had no trouble following him. El Yoco moved as though sure of a mate or a meal. He had destroyed a meal in El Solitario. He must be sure of a better one. Maybe the meal or the mate would hold him long enough for Adán to catch up.

The trail left the bare nopal, vinarama, and brasil level and entered high oak country. This country was so high and steep that grass was untouched by livestock. Livestock did not use this country this time of year because it was too far from water. Adán found a grassy, leafy place under a big oak and lay down. He slept too long. He awoke chilled from a great amount of sweat that had accumulated in pools over his still body. A large pool lay in the hollow of his throat. He bent his shirt collar, gripping it with his chin and chest, to sop the sticky water into his shirt. He sat up and his teeth chattered. He made himself move swiftly as he gathered up his gear. His first step as he left the place stumbled because of his haste to get away from the discomfort that stillness had brought on him. He found that he could see too clearly. The day with the sun setting hurt him with its brilliance. As he warmed in climbing, his body seemed to float underneath his bright vision. He followed the track with dangerous ease, moving faster after a warm sweat covered him.

Before dark, he gained some bluffs crowning the brow of Contreras Peak. The bluffs rose to a cloud that moved over the peak. The cloud shone with the setting sun. He forced himself to stop and watch the cloud because he knew his fever was carrying him along too fast. He must calm himself again even if it meant letting sickness and discomfort catch up to him again. He squatted with his back against the bluff and looked down at El Yoco's track in the soft yellow dirt the bluff had shed. He wondered at the miracle that had carried him through this long day over broken leagues of country to still have the same track fresh under his sight. He felt as confident that he would kill El Yoco as he would if he had the jaguar in the sights of his rifle. He let his gear swing off his shoulders and his huaraches slide out until his legs were resting on the warm ground. He smoked.

His damp body and clothes cooled at dusk but did not chill him. He moved on so he could reach a place he knew under Contreras Peak by full darkness. El Yoco was easy to follow because he had stayed against the bluff.

Adán only hoped El Yoco had not gained ground above him and was waiting for him to separate him from his head and spinal column.

At dark the ground Adán searched was so broken that most of the bluff fell away at his feet and he had to hug sandy rock and feel with his toes for his footing. He saw a cave across the space of a steep and narrow chute. Water had cut through the chute making a chasm hundreds of feet deep. The cave was in the base of Contreras Peak. The top of the peak was close, and Adán realized he had accidentally found an access to the peak that no one of the Sierra knew. Water from a spring filled a bowl in the top of the chute. Adán could hear it and smell it, but only thought he could see it. The mouth of the cave was still darker than the night. He knew all the reaches below this spot and the country behind the cave. He felt sure this was the nesting place El Yoco would have used if he was in the mood for denning. He could be here now. Adán knew this mountain and knew this cave was a dead end for two-footed creatures. Adán made sure of the load in his rifle, left it off safety, and stood it on the step in front of him. He kept the cave in sight while he found his two heavy clubs of pitch pine. He took out his flint and oak punk hiesca. He struck the top of the blade to the flint and blew on a coal the spark caused in the hiesca. He laid a patch of corn leaf on the coal and caught the flame of it with the pitch. He looked away so as not to candle his eyes with the flame and blind himself to the night. He lit both torches, and when hot blaze was popping over them and threatening to burn him, he threw one of them over the chasm into the mouth of the cave. He held the second torch ready while he watched the cave. El Yoco might leave the cave now. lf he came out Adán would bracket him by placing the second torch ahead of him. The torches would bother El Yoco's vision and light him as a target. Adán picked up his rifle. The torch in the entrance of the cave was lighting it well.

He waited a long time. He heard nothing but the spitting and hissing of the pitch in the torches. He lost all the thrill of his expectancy. He used the torch in his hand to light his way and climbed to the pool. He laid the torch by the spring. This must be the spring of La Tiruta he had heard his Tio Pascual describe. The trail to La Tiruta had been used by livestock when Tio Pascual was a boy. Now the bluff had deteriorated so much it closed the trail to any animal but the most wild and shy. He squatted by the mossy bowl of water. The bowl was a watering place for El Javali, the wild, tusky, peccary pig of the Sierra. This peak had always been abudant with javelina. A large bunch was watering here and probably using the cave for a den. Adán climbed to the cave. He smothered the torch lying in the entrance by rolling it in powdery dust that clearly showed El Yoco's track. He held the other torch high and walked into the long, roomy cave.

As he walked through, Adán expected the cave to come to an abrupt end around each bend he lighted. The dust on the floor was fine and deep, a sign that moisture never settled here and much animal traffic still passed through. The odor of the musk of javelina was strong, almost covering the smell of blood. Adán saw shreds of javelina hide. He stopped and found fresh cleaned bones. El Yoco must have surprised the does nursing their babies. He had eaten the milky teats of the javelina mothers first for blood and milk and then eaten the babies, bones and all. El Yoco was sly about taking his favorite meat. This large a denful of the spearing, gutting tusks of El Javali was a dangerous place to sup for any animal. El Javali was mean and always liable to fight. He won as often as he lost. Any animal who preyed on grown javelina was as liable to become a meal as to take a meal, but he was a jaguar's favorite meat and El Yoco knew javelina were most vulnerable when the males were out grazing and the mother does were nursing their young. Adán now knew why El Yoco had passed up the meat of El Solitario, He had passed over El Solitario meat as a king passes over beans. To show his contempt for the plate of El Solitario, he had sullied the meat like a fat man Adán had once seen putting out his cigarette in his serving of beans. El Yoco was taking on the vices of people, the first characteristic of the cebado. The more choices he accumulated for himself to eat, the more he wasted. He would never pass his side dishes to someone who had no choices.

Adán walked on through the cave and saw the chewed heads of three of the mother doe javelina lying apart. The skulls had been cracked carefully and the brains, tongues, and eyes cleaned out. El Yoco had certainly taken his fill. His capacity for eating had been at its greatest. He had not eaten since Adán had begun tracking him. Adán found the exit El Yoco had used. The opening overlooked a small meadowlike mesa.

Adán did not want to rest now that El Yoco had eaten. El Yoco was too full to move on very far, but Adán had to take time in the dark to rest and nurse the grippe. The dust in the cave had set him to coughing a cough that hurt and made him sweat.

Adán came to a corner where men had used fire and found a deep stone bowl carved on three legs. A cup for drinking had been fitted inside the bowl. The cup was fashioned from the same stone as the bowl. The cup and bowl were as exact in symmetry as a man's hand could make them. Beside the bowl and its vessel Adán found a hardwood arma, a throwing stick good for infighting. The weapon was of dark red palo dulce wood and hardened by fire. It was two feet long, rounded and tapered from the middle to sharp points on each end. Adán picked up the arma in the same condition it had been the day it had been laid down. The smooth hard stick was heavy and not splintered.

However brave and good with his hands the man who made that weapon had been, he had left this shelter in a hurry without his cup. Some cebado aloof to natural laws had probably made him leave. This was not a burial cave. No mummies hid their faces between their legs here.

Adán built a small fire outside the entrance of the cave. At suppertime the lighted outline of the entrance was the place for his supper and not the battleground between Adán and a scourge of his world. He swallowed some lechuguilla. The mezcal warmed him. It cleared his head and gave him the impulse to drink his coffee, eat his supper, and smoke his tobacco. He rolled in his blanket with his feet to the fire.

He awoke from his first sleep an hour after midnight, bathed in a cold sweat again. The night had tumed cold. He did not want to move in the sweat. His cough gave him discomfort, but he had been pushing himself so hard no discomfort could keep away his sleep. He wanted to sleep quickly to keep from thinking of the good reasons for him to walk home and tell his wife he had lost the track near the top of Contreras at a cave above a spiraling trail no one knew about, a trail above a chasm where a man would never be found. The beautifully intact arma and cup would be enough evidence to prove Adán had done well in following El Yoco as far as he had. With rest at home the grippe would catch up to him and he would be sick enough so anyone would say he had been wise in leaving the track. He sank into the sleep that kept these excuses away. He awoke from his second sleep without needing more rest.

He lay still in his blanket until he quit sweating. He waited until a chill was nearly on him and then stood up with the blanket as a cloak. He stamped his feet and flapped his arms with the blanket to fan and dry himself. The cough was leaving a metallic, almost plastic, taste that framed his breathing. He built his fire and went to find more wood to fuel it. He hovered over his fire and sipped lechuguilla while the fire stilled his shivers. He banked small sparking coals around his coffee bottle. He spread more coals and warmed a thin piece of loin from the brown bull and a bean burro Lucrecia had put together for him the last night he had been home. He should have eaten this burro long ago except fresher food had always been available at his times for eating. Now he was glad he still had Lucrecia's burro. lt made him remember her hands. It had her caress on it. He took the lid off his coffee and a faint wraith of steam followed his hand from the lip of the bottle. He bit the hot meat, cooled it with the warm beans and tortilla of the burro, and tasted the coffee. He ate slowly, savoring each mouthful, conditioning himself to the repast, so that after his last swallow he was satisfied and did not want or need the taste of more food. He carefully wrapped his bottles in the empty flour sack and placed them in his morral. He picked up his blanket, rifle, and bule and walked out through the cave.

He spent the morning tracking El Yoco to a place where he had sunned and rested the day before. The resting place was near the summit of Contreras in the middle of a savannah shaded by oak and pine. The savannah was shaped like a big hat with a shallow crown upside down. El Yoco had slept in the open knowing no enemy could surprise him there. A cool breeze had comforted him, barely stirring his whiskers. Adán could imagine El Yoco lying full in the sun with his ear to the ground and no preoccupation of any kind. The animal had rested from his killing and his pursuer, from what he had done and would do, in peace, luxury, and safety. He still might not even be aware of Adán. El Yoco must be more right in his daily occupation than Adán was. El Yoco could change his occupation any time at all with no qualm. He could leave the region any time he tired of what he was doing without ever being in danger from Adán. Twenty years from now the region would not remember or give any importance to Adán's perseverance. Adán would not be given any importance for his effort one month from now if he killed El Yoco today.

Adán put his head down and stopped thinking. He knew he was practically raving at himself because of the fever. He stopped the thoughts just before he began waving his arms and shouting at himself. He followed El Yoco's track along the Contreras cordón.

He spent the afternoon following the track off the cliffs to the bottom of the gorge of Tepochici. He rested near the blue water in the gorge where El Yoco had watered and bathed. He had come from the thin air of mountains to the breezeless arroyo, and a spell of coughing wounded and scraped the junction of his throat and lungs. He lay on the clean gravel beside the stream and sipped at the bottle of lechuguilla until the weight on his eyelids lessened and he began to sweat. He waited for the full effect of the drink to nerve him and he followed the track up the gorge. The gorge was so deep that in many places he could not see the sky. The gorge was filled with box canyons stoppered by boulders that caused water to be trapped in deep, clear pools. The gorge was full of green grass and high, thick leafy bamboo untouched by cattle. Then Adán came upon a box canyon grazed clean. Cattle had been in this box. Water diverted by a row of boulders in the mainstream had cut a tunnel in the canyon wall. The floor of the tunnel was swirled, pocked and hilled with line sand. Snags of tall cedarlike tascate, and pine, great oak, and other trees from far away in higher climates had been locked in the tunnel.

Cattle ran away from him as he emerged from the tunnel. They were wild and thin. He stopped and squatted on the sand in the shade of the tunnel. The cattle bunched to watch him. They had no way to escape him. They were all grown and carried full sets of smooth, sharp horns. They were led by a big, high-horned black Brahma cow. They milled desperately, rattling horns and hooves against each other when Adán stood up. They rushed past him for the mouth of the tunnel, sidling, shying, and hooking at him as they went by.

Adán found the spot where the cattle had entered the gorge. The spot was level with his eyes. The cattle had come down over the rock to the lush feed and jumped from the last high step into the gorge and been trapped there. No bovine could jump back from sand and hold that first narrow rock
foothold.

Adán saw El Yoco had left the gorge by leaping from the sand to the rock. Adán, alone now in this hidden place, did not wonder that El Yoco had not stayed here to kill cattle. This small herd was much more dangerous to him than El Toro Buey, and he must respect El Toro Buey very much.

El Yoco's track showed clearly in the deep sand. Adán did not want to turn back here. If he left the track now he could not imagine when he would be able to return to this gorge and pick it up again. But he knew the cattle would starve if he left them. The cattle did not have a bite of feed left. Adán could not go on unconcerned like El Yoco had done the day he had seen the hawk swooping on the duck. On the track of El Yoco a thousand chances could keep him from returning before the cattle perished.

Adán knew he was close to El Yoco, but he had just enough daylight remaining to drive these cattle, swimming each box canyon, down the gorge to the corrals at the roundup camp at Gilaremos before dark. He turned back and followed the cattle through the tunnel. He came in sight of them again and lay down his bule, rifle, morral, and reata by the entrance of the tunnel. The cattle bunched by the edge of a pool they would have to swim to leave the box. Adán would have to make the cattle swim around a boulder and continue through a strait that angled blindly between more boulders. He ran at the cattle like a banshee, yelling and waving his blanket. The bunch milled and pushed two bulls into the pool. Adán gave the cattle room so they would watch the bulls and follow them. He threw rocks and shouted to make the bulls swim into the strait. He charged the cattle again and more cattle went into the water after the bulls.

He ran to head back the black Brahma cow. She hooked and snorted at Adán and charged to trample him. He blanketed her eyes as he stepped out of her path. He slipped in shallow water and fell. He saw the cow's eyes start and fix for impact as she lunged at the blanket. Her front legs stiffened and left the ground. Her hind legs bunched and scrambled as though cranked by her wringing tail and she bounded over the blanket leading the rest of the cattle away from the pool. Adán's paraphernalia was a sentinel on the tunnel and the black cow shied away from it. She stopped, arched her back, raised her head and stared at Adán. The other cattle ran up behind and caused her to start in panic, but she stood her ground while she examined her route through the tunnel. Adán picked up his blanket and trotted after the cattle. The black Brahma cow whirled and led the cattle back to the pool. Adán was close behind them with his blanket and voice. The black cow tucked her feet under her and went into the pool with a high, arching leap. She struck the water flat on her belly. The other cattle followed her, entering the water carefully without wetting their heads. The black cow broke the surface with a lunge upwards for breath that carried her front feet pawing and flailing the surface.

Adán picked up his gear and climbed the boulders to follow the cattle. He drove them swimming the large pools out of the gorge of Tepochici to a corral above the pool of the duck and the hawk. He penned the cattle there when he saw the vaqueros of Juan Vogel coming off Contreras mountain with more cattle.

Adán was hot. He stripped and waded into the pool of the duck and the hawk. He dunked his shirt and drawers into the water ahead of him and scrubbed them with sand. His gold medal with the countenance of his friend, the Virgin of Guadalupe, tapped his breast lightly for company. He left his clothes weighted down with sand under the water and swam out on the surface of the pool. He dove into the cold water of the shady bottom thinking of the duck he had seen, the hawk that had kept the duck in the water. Adán decided not to be unconcerned about himself. If he could show concern for cattle, he could show it for himself. Tonight he was going to have supper at the camp at Gilaremos, take some medicine, have a swallow of mezcal, converse with his friends and comrades, recoup. Maybe El Yoco would hunt and kill again tonight, unconcerned. Adán could not prevent it. Adán would fight his fever with Juan Vogel's remedies and track El Yoco again when he felt better.

He surfaced in the pool. He floated on his back in the current until his shoulders touched gravel. He rubbed his back and legs, rolling like a horse against gravel close under the surface. He got his clothes, wrung them out, and laid them over a boulder to dry. He sat on the boulder and sunned himself and felt the cough might be loosening its hold in his chest. No breeze stirred the warmth of the canyon away. Water ran slowly off his body past places already dry. He did not move during the last hour of the sun as it glazed his skin with its warmth. He dressed himself and picked up his gear when he heard the cattle and men nearing the corral. A vaquero called a greeting to him and went to the stream to drink. Two more went by and then Juan Vogel reined La Bomba from behind the herd and went to the stream. He dismounted, took off his hat and lay flat to drink with his wild hair dipping into the water. Adán kept the herd from straying while the men watered. When they were at their posts around the herd again, he opened the gate of the corral and let his wild cattle out. The vaqueros hurried to keep the wild cattle in the bounds of the herd as they let it move down the arroyo of Tepochici.

"Buena, have you put an end to the scourge, cousin?"

Juan Vogel asked as he rode up to the corral.

"Not yet, cousin," Adán smiled seeing Juan Vogel was sour because he had been moving cattle over hard, dry country all day and at sundown found himself hours away from camp.

"I brought you cattle I found in a box canyon in the gorge."

"I see them. You did well," Juan Vogel relented. "We missed the black Brahma cow last year. I'm glad you hunted the gorge. I didn't see how we were going to find time to do it. The cattle we have gathered have nothing to eat. We have to get them out right now. The wild cattle we miss are just going to have to get along on their own without any help from me, as usual."

"I didn't search the entire gorge. I followed the figre into the box where these cattle were trapped. They would not have swum out without encouragement. Someone will have to search the gorge all the way. A year like this! No one can tell how many cattle are trapped in broken country like the gorge."

"Did your tigre go up the gorge?"

"He left the gorge."

"I was going to say you could watch for cattle as you hunted him up there."

Adán looked at Juan Vogel without answering. He did not want to hunt any more that day.

"You better come on to Gilaremos with us," Juan Vogel said, relenting again. "You look sick. Your face just turned the color of butter." He gave Adán two fat aspirin like mejorales. "These help. I should have brought ten kilos of mejoral."

Adán took the pills wordlessly and without looking into Juan Vogel's face. He walked to the pool chewing the pills. He swallowed the paste with a palmful of water. He crossed the stream, caught up with Juan Vogel, and went on to help the vaqueros with the herd.

The men penned the cattle in the rock corral at Gilaremos an hour after dark. Adán walked with them to the portal of the house. Juan Vogel handed him two water buckets to take to the stream to fill. Adán filled them to the brim and brought them back. He was sniffling. Juan Vogel dipped a cup into a bucket before Adán emptied the buckets into the olla. Juan Vogel dropped two Seltzer tablets into the cup and watched them dissolve. When he was sure the dose was thoroughly prepared, he handed it to Adán and watched him carefully while he drank it.

Adán ate his supper in a dream, his cheeks hot as he squatted by the fire, his spine cold, a dry wind in his throat. He did not look at anyone. He went to his blanket after Juan Vogel gave him two more mejorales to take during the night for the sweating.

Adán was up and gone from camp with Juan Vogel's .30-.30 rifle an hour before daylight. He did not remember much about his supper but he knew the vaqueros needed meat and bones. They had already eaten all the meat and bones of the brown bull. He climbed the mountain to Agua Zarca. He knew of a spring where deer watered. An early morning wind was on his back. The spring wind was hurrying the remaining moisture of the Sierra Madre away. This year the wind was more bothersome because it began an hour before daylight, taking a head start against the light dew that might moisten the brow of the Sierra. Adán climbed on with the heavy rifle.

At sunup he stalked the spring. Two bucks arrived at the same time Adán came in sight of the spring. Adán was breathing heavily. He took a deep breath, squatted out of sight of the deer, and tried to calm his breathing. He thought how dumb a hunter he was to walk up in the sight of his prey with his lungs pumping. He was dizzy. He let his head sink down between his knees and had to put a hand out clumsily when he lost his balance. He breathed with his mouth wide open to keep away the sound of the air he used. He recovered, crawled forward up the hill, raised the rifle, sighted it with the first color of a buck, felt the kick of the rifle before he steadied his sight, and saw he had missed. He sighted again and killed a buck with a shot under the ear, but he had missed a shot and the other buck was lost bounding to the safety of a canyon, He went to his kill and bared its beautiful, tight throat. He touched the throat lightly, careful not to bully it with his knife, and opened a font for the blood. The dry earth quickly took the deer's blood.

Adán draped the deer over his neck and shoulders and started back to Gilaremos. On his way down he found the remuda of horses and mules the vaqueros would need for the day's work. He followed the remuda to camp. He laid the deer under a tree at the edge of the patio. Ruelas and Alfredo lifted the deer's head respectfully by the antlers and exclaimed on its nice weight and size. They hung it from a limb of the tree. They turned the deer slowly where it swung and admonished Adán for carrying it so far. They went back to the fire where they refilled their, coffee cups and began sharpening their knives. Celestino the cuckold, the easily irritated shooter of faithful dogs, the bad shot, the one always ready to grouch up the day, came into view from around the rock corral. Adán bowed his head and doubled his concentration on the drinking of his coffee and the sharpening of Juan Vogel's skinning knife.

Celestino stopped at the edge of the portal. "Buenos dias, " he murmured blankly, expressionlessly. He leaned against the horcón pillar at the corner of the portal. The crew of Gilaremos was angry with Celestino for shooting Mariposa, but everyone answered his greeting. Each man prepared himself for his day's work with coffee, knife, reata, or the stirring of fire under the beans. No one but Juan Vogel looked at Celestino. Celestino sighed after noting each man had answered him. His eye fell on Adán and his gaze remained fixed there. He rested one foot on top of the other and watched Adán without using his eyes at all. Adán glanced at him. Ah, he is trying to remember what he did to cause him preoccupation at the sight of me, Adán thought, smiling to himself. Dim, cheerless, friendless Celestino. Old and faithful antagonist who has never missed a tree to hide behind to snipe at me; never faltered in his purpose to flail at me when he could; never missed a conversation in which he could drop an adverse word about me or mine, whether it be my smallest son, or my toro buey, my crop, my woman, or my sore toe. Celestino Reyes the inbred son of first cousins, the poisonous, backbiting, cow-thieving, dog-shooting, stalker of deserted camps, and visitor of husbandless families. The one person who decided, since the day he had his first thought, that the purpose of his life would be to pick at Adán Martinillo from beneath any rock he could find.

"Celestino the heavenly!" announced Juan Vogel. "What brings you here? We are happy because we know you must have come to work. You see we have meat and beans, potatoes, onions, eggs, and coffee, and best of all, hot fat tortillas served three times a day. Almost as good as all these goodnesses, we pay cash wages."

"How much do you pay?" Celestino asked, looking up at the patch of bark he was trying to peel from the horcón.

"The same as always."

Celestino concentrated on the tiniest bit of bark he could manage.

"Fifteen pesos and your food and very diversionary days of work, comradeship, and good fellowship," Juan Vogel added. The thumb of the right hand of Celestino the celestial caused the fine brown bark of the solid horcón to fly as he finished up the chore of cleaning the patch. "No, I don't think so," he said.

"Don't think so the wages, don't think so the food, or don't think so the fun?" Juan Vogel demanded. He spoke to Celestino as though Celestino was so far above him in the heavens he could not hear him well.

"I don't think so because it is not convenient"

"Why, not convenient?"

"No one works for those wages in this region any more. I can get eighteen pesos building the road for the mines at Las Tunas."

"Ah, but the food, the fun, man! The comradeship. The vaquero does not do common labor with his back like the road worker. These vaqueros are all friends using legs and brains to head the cow. A day of gathering and working cattle is a fiesta of jokes here."

"Not convenient. I'll work on the road for better money and be home every evening"

"Three pesos. You turn down your friends who need you, hope you will lend them a hand, for a difference of only three pesos? Come on, man."

"Not convenient."

"Very well, then," Juan Vogel said abruptly, closing negotiations and grinning at his crew. Some men smiled, relieved Celestino had not accepted the work. They had all known by Juan Vogel's tone that he did not intend to hire Celestino. He knew Celestino would not work. Celestino, however, was feeling good for the chance to refuse Juan Vogel a favor.

Ruelas' wife, Lucia, had come back. She set a cup of coffee on the table by the sugar bowl. She balanced a clean spoon on the cup. "Drink coffee," she ordered Celestino. She did not fool with him as Juan Vogel had done. She served him coffee, remembering that she had never been invited to sit and rest nor been offered a drink of water when passing the house of Celestino. The Reyes' never offered rest, food, or drink to anyone they could hide from. Their house on the main trail to Chinipas always seemed deserted when anyone passed by unless he was a Juan Vogel or some old cacique, owner and lord, who happened back to the Sierra and might make life more convenient for Celestino. Celestino Reyes usually hid behind a tree rather than offer hospitality. His place always looked deserted because he and his fat wife and fat daughters were hiding and holding their breath like snakes surprised in the sun.

Celestino sighed again and began shoveling spoonfuls of sugar into the small cup of black coffee. He stirred, tasted, and put the spoon covered with coffee syrup down on the pool of coffee syrup he had slopped on Lucia's clean tablecloth. He went back to the corner harcón, sipped the coffee noisily until he had swallowed it all, held the empty cup with a finger through the handle in case he was offered more, rested the back of one foot behind a knee, and stared at Adán's bowed head. When he saw Juan Vogel was watching him, he gestured toward Adán by pursing his lips in Adán's direction. He grinned and showed the teeth stained yellow by coffee.

"Has he surrendered his pursuit of the devil now?" he asked Juan Vogel, grinning patronizingly.

"Who?" asked Juan Vogel brusquely.

"Your cousin," Celestino answered, gesturing with chin and lips toward Adán again.

"What cousin? What about my cousin?"

"Martinillo," Celestino said weakly. He cleared his throat. "Martinillo," he said louder.

"Me? What do you want, Celestino?" Adán said, raising his head to stare at Celestino. "Don't be inbred. Ask me your questions. I'm at your service."

"I thought if he has surrendered he might be going home," Celestino said to Juan Vogel. "Since I just came from his house I know more about his woman and children than he does. A pretty woman like that, left all alone, can be prey for all who hunt in the Sierra, even though the 'Lord Hunter' is supposed to be her protector."

"You come from Las Animas? When were you there? What business did you have at my home?" Adán demanded.

"I looked in on the poor woman and found her sick with grief and fear, her children secluded in their beds. I asked for Martinillo and she said he was hunting El Yoco. Her trouble was that same El Yoco. He was at Las Animas last night and Martinillo wasn't there. The animal went in close enough to kill the buckskin mare and to fight the bull. The neck of the mare was broken and she was lying dead not more than ten paces from this man's back door."

"And the bull?" Adán asked.

"Isn't he going to ask about his wife and children?" Celestino asked Juan Vogel.

"You told us about Lucrecia and the boys," Juan Vogel said.

Adán forced himself to relax and be patient. He tried the blade of Juan Vogel's knife at shaving the hair on the back of his hand. He would not ask Celestino another question. Celestino was going to savor giving each bit of information in his own time and manner. He would only tease if Adán questioned him.

"Well, the bull is surely good enough for jerky now after this last encounter with the animal, whatever it is. When I left Las Animas the poor woman was carrying water to him. He couldn't go to water by himself."

"You are sure Lucrecia didn't need your help?" Juan Vogel asked.

"Of course she did. I wanted to stay but I thought it better to try and find this man if he was still in the region. I thought to find him nearer his home, close on the track of the animal. Undoubtedly the same animal he is following killed the mare. I never thought to find him sitting by a fire in a camp. I only came here to warn these vaqueros to notify the man his woman needed him if they saw him. He is needed if for nothing else than to butcher the mare and the bull so the poor woman and those children can salvage the meat. She and those little creatures of hers can subsist alone for quite awhile on that meat when this man leaves them again. I feel very sorry for the poor woman and those sweet children. I thought of taking the little children home with me for my wife to care for."

"Did you see the track of the animal, Celestino?" Adán asked.

"I did."

"Describe it, if you please, Celestino."

"Now, don't think I am an expert on the devil jaguar like some people think they are, but I have seen my share of tracks and I would not say the track I saw was the track of a jaguar."

"Would you say it was the track of a javelina, a house cat, an elephant, a gringo?" Adán asked unsmilingly. His companions laughed, though none looked at Celestino.

"No, ha, ha," said Celestino. "Though I wouldn't know the track of an elephant because that animal is not of this region. The elephant is of other regions unknown to me." He showed his teeth in the yellow smile from which all the coffee had almost slipped.

"Can you describe the track, Celestino, as a track of an animal of this region since you saw it in this region?"

"Well, yes, I saw the track and followed it away from Las Animas. I did not follow it far, you understand, because the poor woman was in no mood to be left alone. In fact, I would still be there had not--"

"Yes, Celestino, we know all about the poor woman. We now want to know about the track."

"Larger than my fist. The track belonged to a large puma or león parda, perhaps. I don't think the track was made by a jaguar. There are no tigres in this region. They have been gone for a long time. I had no way of being sure, you see, because I did not follow the track long enough to see the animal. You see, I was unarmed and leaving the poor woman alone and also unarmed. But I seriously considered going after the animal while he was nearby even though I didn't even have a dog to help me find him or to defend me. I even thought perhaps if I hurried with a rock I might cause the animal to pause, and I might kill it or even cripple it."

"Too bad about the poor woman," Juan Vogel said. "You surely would have killed the animal if not for her. With a rock, even."

Celestino grinned and sighed again. "I'm very good at throwing rocks, large ones too, but I returned instead to the poor woman's side." He straightened and rested one foot on the instep of the other. "Those big animals are very cowardly. ¡Lástima tamaño! What a waste of size and strength. To be so big and that large in cowardice as well!"

"Then the animal was big, Celestino?" Adán asked.

"Immense! And by this I mean very big," assured Celestino. "Haven't I been telling you?"

Adán rose. He was dizzy and hot. He coughed and picked up his rifle and gear. He took medicine for the grippe from a box of provisions. He went to the hanging deer, skinned a front quarter and took the quarter, leaving the sleeve of hide hanging slack. He wrapped the meat in the flour sack in his morral.

The Mariposa dog had been lying near the fire all morning after coming in alone from a hunt. Adán called him. The dog came to him happily, lifting his head to smell and lick the dry blood on his hands.

"We'll see each other," Adán said to the crew and left the camp.

Juan Vogel stirred fire into a smoking log, lit his cigarette with its flame hot on his hand and face, drew on the cigarette, crossed his legs as he turned away from the fire, narrowed his yellow eyes against the smoke, and said, "He won't work now. And to finish me off he took that good dog of his."

10

Lucrecia had lighted her lamps. The boys were playing on the kitchen floor. Adán climbed his stoop and stood inside the door. Mariposa, wiggling slightly with shy pleasure, went into the kitchen ahead of him to lick the boys. Lucrecia leaned backward from her hearth to see into her front room and saw Adán. She did not change expression. She straightened and watched her cooking. The dog licked the face of the Governor, who bellowed and slapped him. Mariposa backed off and went for Memín who liked to be licked. Adancito grabbed the dog and hugged him.

'Mamá, the Mariposa," Adancito said. "And where do you come from, dog?" he crooned.

"With your father. Maybe he brought him. Run and see, sons," Lucrecia said. Rolando saw his father first and said, "¡Ahí no viene?" "Isn't that him?" The boys stood and looked at their father. The Governor was held back by new advances of Mariposa, who was examining his chin and cheek for some sweet smear he might be wearing. Adán laid down his gear and walked into the warm kitchen. He bent and kissed each of his boys. The Governor, fascinated by the sight of his father, did not move or speak. Adán embraced Lucrecia who still had not turned to face him.

"No!" she said. He kissed the corner of her mouth. He stood off and looked at her and saw a clear spot of honey stuck below the corner of her mouth. He kissed the place and licked the honey. "No! I don't love you. Vagabond," she said. She turned to look at him and he knew she was examining him to confirm some suspicion. "You're sick. What do you do to yourself? Look at the condition in which you return yourself to me, animal. If you could see yourself!"

Adán kissed her again and she moved away from him gently to pour hot water into a basin for him. She cooled the hot water and smoothed the folded towel hanging on its rack. She set a comb by the mirror. She straightened the mirror. "Now wash and comb yourself," she said softly. "Look at yourself and think of us." She picked up a bucket of fresh water to replenish the water in the large kettle that chirped on the hearth. She wiped her forehead with her hand, and if Adán had been watching her he would have seen the desperate look on her face that the dark patio outside her window saw, and he would not have recognized the look for he had never seen her afraid. She placed a chair by the fire for him when he turned around from washing and combing himself. She noticed that the only sign of health about him was his thick, black, water shiny hair. She put her soft palm, warm with the making of supper, to his forehead and felt the clamminess of him. "You're sick with the grippe," she said. "You come home sick again. Watching you lie sick and delirious is the way we have of celebrating your homecomings."

"I'm over the worst of it," Adán said, taking a glass of mezcal. "I bathed and sunned yesterday and subdued it. I came home because Celestino found me at Gilaremos this morning and made a scandal about the poor woman of Las Animas. I hurried to get here, but I cut for E1 Yoco's tracks while hurrying."

Lucrecia set the supper on the table and ate her own supper standing at the hearth.

"Thank God for Celestino if it took his scandal to get you home," Lucrecia said. "Even cowards are of some use, I guess. They all seem to have good mouths for spreading bad news. I knew we could expect the worst scandal from Celestino, he who mouths to be, without working to be what he'll never be, a man. Celestino, the true fantoche, sent you home. Thank God for him."

"Let's be thankful for Celestino." Adán laughed.

"Yes, laugh. But I still am not sure that what happened the other night won't happen again. Night before last I awakened after the first sleep. At first I didn't know why I had awakened. I lay there and couldn't go to sleep and couldn't go to sleep, and then I realized why I had awakened. The quiet. The rooster had not crowed. His hour had passed without his singing. Some presence was causing the fear that kept him from crowing. I was so frightened I held my breath. I went into the boys' room. Adancito was sitting up in bed, listening too. I could hear no sound of any kind. My own feet made no sound. The breathing of the boys, which always sounds like four little trucks going, had no sound. I went to the back door. The door was ajar because of the closeness of the room. I smelled El Yoco. His smell had remained here the way the smell of dead flesh lingers in the nostrils for a long time, since his fight with El Toro Buey. I had not forgotten it. His odor was fresh again. At the moment I was sure he was near us again, the buckskin mare screamed in her pen. I ran to the front door and saw her break out of the pen and run toward the house. The tigre was so close to her I couldn't see him at first, then I saw him running close ahead of her flank, as close as her colt would run. He turned her away and dragged her down as she ran around the corner of the house. The skillet was the first handle available to me and I took it and ran to the mare. The tigre was on her. I threw the skillet with all my strength and hit the bone of him from about a vara away. The mare got free of him and I turned and ran back into the house."

"Did he chase you?"

"I don't think he did. I think he wanted to, but the mare tried to get away again and distracted him."

"And El Toro Buey? Where was he this time?"

"Man, people must have heard him in San Bernardo and Chinipas. I'm surprised you didn't hear him He came quickly, though not quickly enough to stop the animal from killing the mare. They closed once and El Toro Buey took a lot of punishment, but he must have given more because he ran El Yoco across the patio. He stopped in the patio and refused to chase El Yoco. He stood there challenging him. El Yoco stayed close to the house for about an hour, but El Toro Buey couldn't close with him again. El Yoco tore the stuffing out of the packsaddles, scattered the milo maize, uprooted the new lime trees, sliced up your tobacco plants, slashed the hide of the filly where you stretched it on the back of the house. He didn't come back to the patio because of El Toro Buey. I think he would have liked to come right in the house, though."

"He would have been sorry. He'd have found another fiera, a fierce and haughty savage, in her den with her claws ready for him," Adán said, drawing Lucrecia to his lap.

"No!" she said, but she settled comfortably there. She lay her forearms over his, holding his arms close to her sides, her hand holding his hands over her stomach. He felt the strength of her inside his arms. "Don't think I wasn't ready for him. He thinks he's so audacious. Lucky for him El Toro Buey didn't let him in. He would have found a pair of testicles in here he couldn't swallow, and I don't refer to those little marbles of Adancito's."

"Where do you carry those kind of weights?" Adán laughed, searching the place for testicles.

"¡Ah, no! You just think I don't have them," Lucrecia said. She pulled his hands high between her legs. "Here! Right here! They might be invisible, but I have huevas too. He would have taken a pot between his eyes, an ax between his shoulders, a butcher knife between his legs, and a lighted pitch torch in his anus before he got out of here--if he got out alive."

"His anus is not so still a target, woman. Maybe you should have just closed your doors."

"I hoped he would try coming inside my house. I wouldn't have chased him while he was outside; but I had no doubt he would get the worst of it if he came into my kitchen."

She laughed. "When he was up on top of the ramada where the milo maize was stacked, he was growling and ranting and attacking the stalks as though they were alive and the roof of the ramada gave with him. He fell into the pig sty and milo maize funneled in on top of him. He was silent for a moment as though he was hurt. El Toro Buey made a charge for the sty and it rained milo maize when El Yoco exploded out. He ran away growling with his ears back. I wasn't afraid he would come back that night, he'd made such a fool of himself.

"This morning I was out skinning the mare when that cuckold, Celestino, slithered up to the patio. He shows up here every six months to see what he can smell. I've never told you, but he always seems to know when you are away."

"I've always known it."

"You have? Anyway, he used his buttocks on the stump in the woodpile while he watched me skin the mare in the sun. I got tired of his questions and tried to give him the knife so he could finish skinning and start gutting and boning. I was just butchering the mare on her hide. I wasn't strong enough to hang her.

"When he saw I meant for him to do the job, he just laughed at me and said it was not 'convenient' for him to do so. He uses that word around me to let me know he wants me and I should be convenient for him, I guess. He said he had to go on. He could not stay here alone with me. I told him I thought this was funny for him to say because he never came to Las Animas unless I was alone, and he always stayed until he made a fool of himself by showing he wanted me and by my showing that I couldn't stand the sight of him. I said, 'Now you have a reason to stay and help me and you claim it is not convenient, as though it is you who would be compromised.' He leered at me. He's as ugly as a broken, smoked lamp. He said he would like to help me if I could make it convenient for him. I told him, yes, I would make it convenient for him--to see if El Yoco had left Las Animas. I took him and showed him the tracks from the pigsty.

" 'You mean he has not gone yet?' he asked, looking around.

"I said, 'There is the track, find out.'

"He said, 'I have no weapon.'

"I said, 'Use a rock. You people are more used to rocks and sticks anyway. You would be unsafe to yourself armed with a real man-made weapon. I'll loan you my skillet, my butcher knife, and a pitch torch. Those are the weapons I had last night.'

"I said, 'I can't lend you any balls, though. You'll have to use your own to find El Yoco. If you have any. Don't hope to use them around here in any other manner. You seem to want to try them when you come here every six months when my husband is away. Try them on El Yoco.'

"This time when he said, 'No conviene', he meant it, and I told him, 'I bet, no conviene, you big goat with horns. You better go someplace where it is convenient for you to be, like with your loudmouthed fat wife who makes a fool of you with other men every time you leave home.' He left whining with his ears laid back."

"And then?"

"And then I laughed at him. He hurried away with his skinny buttocks squeezed together as though he was in a hurry to make caca. As though he had a terrible pain to caca and along, long way to get out of my sight and hearing before he could do it. For the first time in my life I couldn't keep my eyes off him and I couldn't stop laughing. He entertained me the best I have ever been entertained while I kept him in sight. When he went around the bend of the arroyo, I climbed the nacapúl so I could see him again. He was running. I shouted, 'Run, run, cabrón, your wife diverts herself at this very moment. Take a rock to defend yourself. Use it to wipe with when you soil yourself coming face to face with her lover.' "

"Ah, wife, the man is afraid. Why provoke him?"

"Why not provoke him?"

"He's worse than la vibora, the viper. I wouldn't allow you to taunt the viper because of the danger to you. Celestino is more dangerous than a viper. A viper is a coward because of the way God made him. Celestino almost exactly resembles a man."

"You should hit him with a stick then, Martinillo. I don't want him to come here."

"He's too small for me to hit. I know I can do it, he knows it, you know it. What kind of a great man would I be, great tigre, to hit a Celestino?"

"Celestino hates you and wants me."

"That doesn't make me a poor man." Adán drew his wife closer so she would have to soften her voice. He caressed the lobe of her warm ear, his arms embracing her. He caressed the fine ridge of muscles beside her spine. He unbuttoned the front of her dress and warmed his hand against her breast. He kissed her carefully until she began to kiss extravagantly. He controlled himself and his wife until a sweet mist formed around them both.

11

The gray horse wandered frailly on the trail and Chombe spurred him impatiently. Chombe was angry and uncomfortable. He was hungover and sleepless and he had gorged himself on Bonifacio's provisions. He blew his breath away from a belch that forced itself against the sides of his throat. He spurred the horse cruelly, and jerked the girl's rope. The girl looked back anxiously at him, wanting most to do exactly what he wished her to do, willing to be correct and apprehensive about all his wishes. He had taken her. She was afraid to do him a wrong, though she had not yet learned which of her acts were wrong and which of them were right for him. She placed herself exactly in the middle of the trail ahead of him and held her pace so that the choke rope was as tight as she could stand yet not so slack as to make him whip it up and lash the knot against the back of her head. No matter how he had come by her, she knew that he possessed her now and her life depended on him.

The gray horse could no longer respond to Chombe's gouging spurs. He could barely support Chombe's weight. Luz del Carmen could still jump in response to him and could force her swollen eyes to see him. She had no thought of resting them in the nice darkness of their tight folds. She still jumped at the renewal of her pain. The horse no longer felt or cared about his. The horse wavered off the trail and stopped at the pool of the duck and the hawk. He tugged carefully at the rein and waited for Chombe to give him slack so he could drink.

"You can drink, little daughter," Chombe said kindly to the girl. "But only a little. Too much will make you sick." He dropped his reins and stepped off the horse, holding the choke rope tightly to the girl. The girl went to her hands and knees on the stone by the edge of the pool and strained with careful intent until her lips touched the sweet water. Chombe coiled the slack in the rope until he stood behind her. He pulled her head off the water to make her stop drinking. She trembled with her longing to drink, relaxing her body toward the water, waving her head, searching for slack so she could lower it to water. Chombe laughed. She amused him so much. She performed every human act with a grace he loved to watch. It surprised him to see how much she wanted plain water, she whom he had always admired as being so fleet, tireless, and strong. He had never thought she might need normal sustenance to make her body function. He let her head down so she could drink fully. He pulled it back so she could not. He let her down so she could barely sip and she had to suck noisily to draw water off the surface. He laughed and began dropping her head into the water and drawing it out before she could drink. Finally he let her drink, became impatient when she took too long and was showing the concern for water that he expected her to show him, and pulled her away. He tied the rope on the high limb of a tree out of her reach.

He went to the stream and drank a sip or two because the water was there. He bathed his hair and wiped it forward and looked at his reflection in the pool. His face was swollen with sleeplessness and bristling with whiskers that seemed tougher now than any other man's. He was going to sleep awhile in the shade. He smiled with happiness at the prospect of sleeping soundly. He could sleep all day if he wanted to now that he was getting everything he wanted.

The gray horse groaned, fainted, and fell headfirst into the pool. Chombe went into the water and found the reins to pull the animal's muzzle clear of the water. The horse had drunk too much and foundered. Chombe cursed him and pulled at the dead weight of him. When he saw the horse was dying and leaving his dead weight on top the rifle he went wild. He kicked the horse's belly, jerked on the reins. His underwater kicks had no force and the plunging of his legs sank him deeper into the water. He tired, lost his breath, lost his balance, and stepped off into a hole, completely immersing himself. When he came out of the hole the horse's bridle had come off in his hand and he had badly frightened himself with drowning. He forgot the horse and floundered to the shore. He lay on the hot, dry rocks out of the stream afraid and belching, while his father's gray horse drowned in two feet of water. He allowed his bladder to relax and his urine to warm his pants while he wept with the shock the fear of drowning had caused.  He stopped crying when new fear was caused by a voice which asked him, "What class of idiot could drown a horse during a drouth with water so scarce?"

Chombe raised his head but did not look at the speaker.

He moved his eyes enough to see that Luz del Carmen was out of sight, hiding. His tears dried completely, immediately. His face became bloodless so quickly it seemed to sop all the moisture and puffiness from itself.

"You had to come a long way, idiot, to find water enough to drown a horse," Adán Martinillo said. Chombe looked at him and saw that Adán was not pointing his rifle at him. He knows nothing about me, Chombe thought. Nothing at all. He got up smoothly and went to the horse. He took Bonifacio's machete from its scabbard under his stirrup leather. He walked to the bank and sat in the shade in a place where Adán must stand with his back to the girl if he was to watch Chombe.

Adán rolled up his trousers and waded to the side of the horse. Chombe took off his boots and placed them side by side.

Adán wondered why the idiot would take his new boots off after they were wet unless to empty them, which he did not. He should put them back on so they would not shrink, but he did not do it. Adán was leaning over the horse trying to uncinch the saddle when he found out the reason. Chombe walked toward his back quietly. Adán was watching him, knowing the range of the machete, not worrying about any weapon but the machete, when Chombe hit him between the shoulders with a rock. Adán saw it coming in time to go with it in a dive into the water. His act of taking a full breath to sustain him underwater was conscious after the rock struck him.

Adán was surprised by the force and violence of the blow and the decision of Chombe to deliver it. Chombe had grown from a shy, admiring boy to a man-sized coward. Adán relaxed underwater while he waited for the shock of the blow to wear off so he could understand how seriously he was hurt. He was not hurt. He held a full breath. He let his gear carry him deep. He swam, surfaced, and threw his gear to the bank. He dove underwater again when he saw another rock flying at his head from Chombe's hands. He swam to the opposite bank, ran across the stream over shallow water, and went into the brush on Chombe's side.

Chombe had laughed when he saw Adán go into the hole in the pool that had scared him with drowning. He watched Adán sink toward the deep center of the pool, sure he had put the man under long enough to drown him. He took his time finding another rock big enough to finish the man if he surfaced. Adán could not save himself now. He was under Chombe's power. Suddenly, he saw he was too late to choose a rock. He saw Adán's white shirt close to the surface. Chombe clawed at rocks. The rock that came loose in time broke in half as it left his hands, missing Adán. He saw Adán swim for the other bank and he ran to pick up the machete. He took the machete and looked up in time to see Adán running down the bank. Chombe ran into the brush away from the girl. He ran on his bare feet over thorns until he whimpered. He went into the Tepochici corral and hid against the rock wall. He calmed his breath and examined his feet. He had not hurt them. He had not been wearing the boots he stole from his father's store long enough to make his feet tender. He was used to going barefoot anyway. He rose and went to the gate, remembering the rifle lying with the gear Adán had thrown out of the water. He was sure Adán would have to make a wide circle through the brush looking for him. This would leave Adán further from the rifle than Chombe.

Chombe gathered himself to sprint for the rifle. He took both Adán Martinillo's heels in the side of his head. Adán had been waiting on top the rock wall. Chombe rolled and sat up. He turned and saw no man to hurt with the machete. He got to his feet and felt strong hands in his hair and on the wrist that held the machete. He was guided like a wheelbarrow for three running steps and his head was driven into the rock wall at the same time his shoulder was wrenched upward. He released the machete and saw it spin away. He relaxed on the ground against the wall. Hands again took him by the hair and the wrist, jerked him to his feet with no chance of allowing his pain to clear, and ran him back to the pool. He did not whimper. He was not angry. He was helpless with pain. He was being delayed, but he knew he was going to kill this man. He had known it all his life. Then he realized he was not being stopped at the edge of the stream. He screamed, flailed, and reached for the force he could not see, reached to find and feel and identify the force he no longer could be sure was a man as he was driven down under the surface of the water. He was drowned, revived, and drowned again, and then dragged to the bank.

"Just don't drown me," he said when he was finally sure he would live. "Kill me, but don't drown me."

The force lifted him again by sore arm and sore scalp and drove him to the tree where the girl was tied. The girl was still hiding. The force piled him at the base of the tree and Chombe looked up and saw Adán untying the knot of the rope on the limb. This was the first sight Chombe had of the man since he had seen him running down the bank of the stream.

Adán tied the end of the horsehair rope around Chombe's neck and only when he tried to pull in the slack of the other end did he realize something alive was on it.

"¡Qué hijas de lu chingada has hecho aqui! What have you sons of the fornication done here now!" Adán said, pulling on the live, hidden weight at the end of the rope. Chombe jumped up to run, and Adán jerked him down onto his back with the choke loop. "Sit where I left you sitting or I'll kill you," he said. He pulled angrily on the rope and the girl came to him through brush and boulders. Her hands covered her face. Adán pulled the hands away roughly, cruelly.

"Luz del Carmen, you with this idiot murderer?" Adán said.

"Leave her alone. She is not any of your business. She is mine, right, little daughter?" Chombe said, as though conspiring with the girl.

Luz del Carmen covered her face and kept still as though expecting a blow or a rebuke. Adán examined the hair collar on Luz del Carmen. The girl's neck had been cut and worn by the rope. Adán cut the collar away from her. He felt like weeping, understanding suddenly the extent of the bad treatment the girl had been enduring. He was also sad for himself for having discovered this crime. He walked over to Chombe and struck him behind the ear with the butt of his rifle in exactly the same way he would have struck a crippled animal to give him respite from misery. He stretched the boy out and tied him securely to the tree. He stood his rifle by the tree and went to wash the ooze of Chombe from his hands. When he came back with his gear to the tree he saw the girl had taken his rifle and was pointing it at him with no immediate intent to kill him. He paid her no mind. He looked at his knots on Chombe. He sat at the base of the tree in the shade and got his tobacco and corn leaf out of a waterproof plastic bag in his morral and made a cigarette. The tobacco smoke left a comfortably numb taste that soothed him.

"Let him go," the girl said, steadying the rifle at Adán.

"Don't you want to see your father, girl?"

"No."

"Why?"

"How could I face my father now?"

"Could you have faced your father yesterday?"

"Yes, but then I was helping him, and Chombe had not come."

"Why does Chombe make any difference? He's not your father."

"He has me now."

"Does he own you? Did you give yourself to him? Do you love him and wish to serve him?"

"No. But he has me now to use."

"Who else knows this?"

"No one."

"How do you know this man disgraced you?"

"He tied me, beat me, choked me, tore me inside, and opened me for himself."

"Did you want him to?"

"No."

"Do you want him to do more of these things to you and then kill you when he is tired of you?"

"No, but he took me. I have to go with him and you have to let him go."

"Ah! You lost your purity, is that it?"

"Yes."

"Who told you that you would no longer be chaste and pure after you had been raped?"

"The padre cura from Chihuahua who gave us girls instruction said we must fight until we die for our purity or we will go to hell. Other girls became saints because they fought the men until the men stabbed them or choked them to death. I fought little. This man was too strong for me. He took me easily. What good man would have me now? No one will want me, not even my father."

"How do you know? Did he tell you? Have you seen him?"

"No. He did not come home last night from his work. But he'll look at me and know I'm not clean."

"Listen, girl. Because this man didn't kill you while he was playing with himself with you doesn't make you impure. This man raped you. He forced you. You did not help him. He hurt you to make you submit to the badness he was doing to himself. He hurt your body, but it will heal with no trace of him. You can forget him. Remembering him is not to your advantage. Going with him is not to your advantage. In order for you to lose your purity you have to want to do what he did to you."

"Anyone who does this is impure."

"Who told you that?"

"The priest."

"You understood wrongly. Do you consider your poor mother impure because she conceived you? I don't consider Lucrecia impure because she gives herself to me. She loves me and I love her. Nor should you consider yourself impure because this man abused himself with you. You gave him nothing. He only used you for his masturbation. You are chaste and you will make a good wife. When you love a man you will know the difference between impurity and chastity more than most women do. I don't believe the padre in Chinipas would consider his own mother impure for having loved his father and given him birth. You become unchaste only when you want to do something which dirties you. You have not done that."

"I wish he had killed me."

"From the standpoint of his soul, he could have done no worse by killing you. From your standpoint and mine and your father's it would have been terribly sad if he killed you. You have your life. I'm grateful to God. In less than a week you'll be grateful too, and someday you'll find you are just as pure as you were before that idiot oozed into your camp. That is impurity, that oozing thing I tied under the tree. You see?"

"I know everyone will look at me. I'll have a baby.

They're going to say I'm Chombe's puta. "

"Worry if you want to when you start getting a big belly. Not now. Babies are beautiful and innocent. Anyone can make a baby, even bad men. Good mothers sometimes make them nice people."

"No one would want me if I show with the baby of this salamander."

Adán laughed. "You haven't got a baby yet. You don't get babies every time a man uses you, thank God. Men will love you and you will have your choice of whom you want to marry, you don't need to worry about that. Choose the man who will love your children whether or not they are his and you don't have to tell anyone who the father is. I won't tell anyone."

"The salamander will."

"Him? He probably will. So what? You don't owe any explanations. You just keep quiet until your belly starts growing. If you don't grow, keep on being quiet. People get tired asking questions when you just look at them until they realize they have no business asking questions. You can do that, can't you?"

"Yes."

"That's all you have to do, Luz del Carmen. Forget it. You don't have to worry about Chombe. He is a burnt-out light bulb. As soon as he revives, we're taking him to Avena so we can call for the authorities."

"I won't go to Avena. I can't even walk."

"I'll carry you."

"Not to Avena with the people. I want to go home."

"No. I'll go for the authorities in Chinipas. It's just as close. I know a good place for you there. But let's go now so I can come back for Chombe tonight."

Adán shouldered his gear and picked the girl up on his back. The girl's head was asleep on his back before he remembered he had not looked for Chombe's rifle under the horse. He coughed and hurried on. He would hurry back. Chombe could not escape the Sierra Madre unless a salamander could become a wolf.

12

Celestino Reyes hurried on against all his premonitions. He was always afraid when he traveled at night. He was especially afraid when big animals were known to be out killing other big animals. He was thirsty when he arrived at the pool of the duck and the hawk. The moon was so pale and small rising on the horizon it was serving only to make deeper shadows to hide animals who could hurt him and obscure objects lying malignantly in wait to turn his ankles or make ominous sounds he did not want to hear. Celestino, walking at night over country a long way from home moved so fast he cast almost no shadow and left no sound.

He hated to make sounds. He hated to tarry over any step. He was afraid to make any noise that would cause other beings to make noises and sights that scared him. He held his breath half the time. He was thirsty with fear and with breathing through his mouth to breathe quieter. But home was still at least two hours away and he didn't think he could make the climb in comfort unless he stopped for a drink of water. The pool of the duck and the hawk was open and well lighted under the moon. He stopped and looked around after he crossed the stream. Aside from a strange light spot under the big tree, he could see no dangerous beings to keep him from drinking. Rigid with fear he knelt to drink. His foot slipped and plunged a knee into the water. He kept drinking as fast as he could.

He raised his head for breath and saw a grayish boulder in the water close to him that he had never noticed in the hundreds of times he had passed and drunk at this pool. These boulders changed positions often during the rainy season, but the rainy season was three months away. He moved toward the shape, sniffing it. His eyes were wide as he could open them. He stayed low on his hands and knees though he was cold in the water. He did not travel far in that manner, water-bound. He reached forward and touched the gray hair on the gray shape of the drowned horse and at that moment identified the smell of a drowned horse. He floundered, sank to his shoulder in the deep hole by the horse and wet himself to his chin before he steadied himself. He found himself looking at a saddle on a dead horse and not mossy, brushy trash on a boulder.

He looked around slyly until he was sure no one was watching to see he intended to take the saddle. Those eyes he thought he saw under the tree were undoubtedly not real eyes because his vision was always cowardly at night. He told himself he was not seeing eyes but only felt he was being watched. He always felt that way when he was about to steal something. He had not truly meant to steal the saddle. No one yet could have seen him steal a saddle because he had not even seen a way to get it loose from the carcass. He backed carefully, even with some dignity, out of the water and stood cold and undecided, watching the light spot with eyes under the tree. The spot moved.

"Who are you?" he murmured, afraid of the sound of his own voice. "Let me see you," he begged when he got no answer. He started to sidle away.

"I'm Chombe and don't move. I have you in the sights of my pistol."

Celestino looked away from the light spot. The spot had not moved again, and he was sure it did not have eyes and positive it was not pointing a gun at him.

"Chombe? Little Chombe? How have you been behaving, Chombito? I was just on my way home. Did you see this saddle on the dead horse? The saddle is getting wet. Where are you? I don't see you."

"That is my horse. My saddle. My sights are on your heart."

"You should get the saddle out of the water. I'm sorry I can't help you because I'm wet and cold and I have to go home." Celestino tried to move.

"You are moving, Celestino. I'm going to kill you for that"

"Kill me? Why? You wouldn't kill me, Chombe, would you? It would not be very convenient for you to do that."

"Least of all convenient for you. I won't kill you if you help me."

"Of course, Chombe. Anything. I'm here to be of any service possible. What can I do?"

"I'm hurt. I can't move my shoulder. You are going to be a good neighbor and help me."

Celestino moved toward the sound of the voice. "Of course, where are you, poor boy?"

"Stand and listen."

"Of course." Celestino stopped so suddenly he stumbled.

"Take the saddle off the horse."

Celestino splashed into the water. He was no longer cold. He moved so fast he made the water churn and muddy itself.  He did not immediately discover the ends of the latigo and the cinch buckle, so he pounded the water as though to clear the way for his hands to the cinch buckle. He held his breath so long he became exhausted from his great flurry of energy and he stumbled into the deep hole by the horse. He came up knowing he had taken a good look at his own death.

"Chombe!" he cried, choking on water.

"Right! I'll kill you or the water will if you don't calm yourself. Hear me?"

"Yes. All right," Celestino said, trying for control. Chombe laughed. "Sing a song for me. Singing will comfort you and steady my aim. When I shoot, you want me to shoot straight, don't you?"

"No, don't."

"You wouldn't want me to shoot straight? What if I miss your head or your heart and hit your spine and cripple you, or worse, what if I break your bones three or four times before I send the bullet that stops your pain?"

"Yes, but no, don't shoot. I sing, not well, but I know how." He went back to the cinches and luckily found the end of the latigo he needed to untie and free the saddle.

"Well, sing then."

"I have a sweetheart named Panchita. She has black eyes and a little mouth," Celestino murmured, singing.

"What? Sing loudly. I want to hear the echoes. If the next sound you make is not the loudest you have ever made it will be the last sound you ever make."

"I don't know what to do with her, Mamá, " Celestino brayed into the canyon. "Sooooo that she'll love me. That Panchita's got me crazy with her fooling around." He jerked the saddle free of the horse.

"Now bring the saddle to the bank."

Celestino dragged the saddle out of the water and relaxed his lingers so it fell on the bank. He looked at the boughs of the tree much in the same way he had seen pictures of Christian martyrs look beseechingly at the heavens just before they were eaten alive.

"Now, listen carefully, Celestino, my friend. A man is tied to that tree you are facing. The man is unconscious. Carry the rifle from the saddle scabbard to the tree. Loose the man's bonds, but don't look at him or wonder who he is. He is only a poor half-dead bale of flesh who is of no concern to you. After the man is free you hurry back to the saddle. Now do it quickly. Quickly! And make no mistakes; I'm tired of doing your thinking for you."

Celestino went to the tree with the rifle. He stumbled over Chombe and skinned his face against the tree in his hurry. He leaned the rifle against the tree, found the hair rope and freed Chombe. He stood over the body, unsure of what his instructions had been. He looked down at Chombe's face. He did not recognize him in the shadows of the moon. Chombe rolled out from underneath him, grabbed the rifle, and levered a shell into the chamber.

"Thank you, Celestino," Chombe grinned.

"Is it you, Chombe?"

Chombe kept grinning at him.

"But who is the other man who has been talking to me?

He has your voice."

Chombe laughed. "He's gone, I guess. You wouldn't know him."

"What do you want with me, Chombe?"

"Go back to the saddle like the man instructed you and tell him you have freed me."

Celestino hurried back to the saddle. "Chombito is no longer tied," he said loudly.

"Bring the saddle and build a fire, Celestino. I guess the man has gone."

Celestino built a fire under the tree. As he worked he remembered how afraid he had been walking the trail alone in the dark. How different that fear had been from real fear. He had been afraid all his life, hour by hour, by the minute, sick with fear, but he had never known the cause of his fright. Now, this moment, he knew. Chombe was the catalyst to the end of Celestino's chosen fears. Celestino's freedom was over and so was his life.

"What have you got in your morral to eat, Celestino?"

Chombe asked good--naturedly.

"A little coffee and tortilla. Very little. I'll give it all to you, though."

"Good. Get it for me."

"But who was that man with your voice? Won't he come back to bother us?"

"No, because we are going home. Sing as you go. I'll follow you closely. Sing all the way home and don't look back."

13

The town of Chinipas was awakening when Adán Martinillo arrived with Luz del Carmen. He had to dodge and hide on the river side of the town so no one would see them. He stood in brush beside the air strip watching the town. He heard the sound of the route plane that came to Chinipas three times a week. The sound of the engine rattled against escarpments along the river, and Adán saw the craft begin to spiral down to the canyon. He moved around the stip, knowing the pilot was concentrating on his approach and would see Adán if he crossed the strip. He knelt behind boulders at the edge of town when a boy driving a herd of cows to pasture passed close to him. He let the herd go on, located the door of the house he would enter, and sprinted the last two hundred meters across backyards and under clotheslines without being seen. He went through the back door of the house and stood in the silent, dark interior. He held the girl and looked at her. She seemed like any child who felt safe in sleep. Her face no longer seemed as devastated as it was when he found her.

He laid the child on a sofa and covered her with a robe he had used many times to cover himself, a robe his grandmother had given to the woman who lived in this house. He was still until he located the woman's breathing. He followed the sound into a bedroom. She was lying deep under the covers with her reddish-blond hair barely showing, her face toward the wall in her pillow.

He watched her while he decided how to awaken her. Since childhood she had always slept without moving, leaving her body deep in comfort and going away on glorious ventures while it rested.

Adán leaned over the bed and carefully grasped the lobe of her ear. He held the lobe gently until the woman stirred. The eyes opened.

"Adán?" the woman asked.

"Yes," he said and kissed her on the cheek. "Anyone would have to be crazy to sleep like that."

"I am crazy," she said. She stretched and kicked her legs out straight. The warm smell of her from under the covers made Adán kiss her lips. She stretched her arms over him in awakening and let them relax around his neck. She pushed him gently.

"Don't kiss me, you prowling animal," she scolded. She stretched again. "Go out and let me dress."

"Do you have coffee?" Adán smiled.

"Find it. Sneak up on it in the kitchen."

Adán left her to build a fire and put the coffee water on to boil. He went back and found her sleeping again.

"What? Can't you wake up? Do you have to be lazy today of all days?"

"I'm not the wife of the Martinillo. I don't have to jump up and feed the pigs, chickens, horses, cows, and a bunch of little mocosos, runny-nosed boys."

"You wish you did," Adán said grinning. The woman feigned sleep. He stroked her hair back from the temples, hair smooth and straight, lying on her warm cheek. He moved his hand and felt her breath against the back of it.

"Sleep. Sleep. Sleep," he whispered as he petted her. She settled into her pillow again, her face composed and turned away from him toward sleep. He covered her shoulder with the blankets. What was he going to do if she went back to sleep on him?

"I'm going," he said softly. "I shouldn't have awakened you."

"No," she said. "I'm not asleep."

Adán put his face down into the private hollow where her breath warmed the pillow and kissed her carefully.

"Unfaithful dog," Juanita said. "I hope my breath is stale."

"Sweet," Adán relaxed outside her covers.

"Don't kiss me. Don't skulk into my house. You don't love me." She kissed him and blew her breath softly against him.

"I love you," Adán said.

"I don't know how best to hate you. Odious. You are unfaithful to my sister being here with me. You are unfaithful to me when you are giving my sister my babies."

"Not my fault."

"Nor mine, dog. Running, chasing dog."

"I brought you a child."

"I don't want your child."

"A hurt child. I found her."

"What do you want this time?"

"I'm telling you. I brought you Luz del Carmen to take care of."

"Where is she?"

"On the sofa. She's been beaten."

"Who beat her, you dog?"

"She's been beaten and raped."

"Is she very sick?"

"No. She'll heal if you look after her. Don't let anyone see her for a few days. Love her."

"What made you think to bring her here? Luz del Carmen? She lives in Teguaraco. She lives only on the other side of the damned mountain from your own damned house."

"She'll be our daughter. You and I can have her."

"Where is Bonifacio?"

"How do I know? I'm her father now. I'm your father. Stop asking me questions. Give me kisses."

"Yes."

"One kiss only and I have to go."

"Don't go. Lie here and rest."

"No. I left the real dog tied to a tree. I have to go for the authorities. Don't tell anyone Luz del Carmen is here."

"Don't go."

"Anyway, what do you care about me, a chasing dog?"

"No. You're my man. Don't go-all right, go. But go far away this time. Go all the way back to the mother who bore you."

"Now, you see? You've run me off," Adán smiled.

"Nooooo!" said Juanita, begging playfully.

Adán got up from as comfortable a bed as he had ever known, as warm a breast, as soft a breath on his cheek, and went away to see if he could find someone to put Chombe in jail.

14

Juan de Dios Felix stepped down from the bus in San Bernardo. He waited while the bus driver lowered his saddle and bedroll from the top of the bus. He picked them up and turned aloofly away from the staring occupants of the bus so they would have to look at the big silver-handled .45 caliber automatic pistol on his hip and not at his face. He was not a happy man, but he thrived on contention. He had never played, danced, sung, or laughed out loud in his life, and so his serious demeanor lent him no dignity. His serious demeanor only showed his contempt for other humans. He especially loved to hate meek and humble people and that kind of people especially hated him. He knew few men feared him any more. Back when men had feared him he had been good at showing contempt. Now he only showed it out of habit, and people did not pay much attention to his demeanor. But his demeanor still showed that he enjoyed killing. He preferred hanging. He did not get to hang anybody any more, and so he felt the world was going seriously wrong. No hanging any more had become for him the world's biggest problem. Now, in his seventieth year, Juan de Dios Felix was going to try to bring about a hanging.

Juan de Dios had been retired from his job as Commissioner of Federal Law for the Municipality of Rio Alamos. He had served as commissioner for forty of his seventy years. People called him Juan the Law to his face. He liked this. During the first twenty years of his office he had been called La Vibora, the Rattlesnake, behind his back because of his reputation for killing men in the name of the law. Few criminals had escaped him to face the justice and mercy of their government. In his last twenty years of office he was called Caga Lumbre, Shitting Fire, behind his back because he so badly wanted to kill men, but the law would not let him. He spent his last twenty years in office blustering and sputtering hot words and threats, which were only the exhaust of his seared soul and no longer of any impact. He still kept an office in his home and considered himself a people's authority, though retired.

He stepped up onto the portal of a store with his heavy saddle. He loved his heavy, horse-killing, wither-chewing saddle. He never carried it far himself. He stared at the young men who squatted insolently and did not rise in his presence. He laid the saddle carelessly on its curling skirts, laid the bedroll on top of it, and ordered a youngster to carry the gear to the back yard of the store. The young man, out of respect for an elder and because he was weak and humble in the eyes of Juan de Dios, stood up and did as he was told.

Poncho Montenegro owned and ran the store. He was comisario of law in San Bernardo. He was waiting on a small boy who had asked him for soap powder. The powder came in tiny plastic bags and Poncho served them up to the boy with the same courtesy he used when he served one-hundred-pound sacks of flour to big customers. Poncho did not look up at Juan de Dios while he was attending the boy. Juan de Dios began turning over a stack of heavy cheeses on the counter, inspecting them, and hefting them for weight and freshness. The boy went out and Poncho began rebuilding the stack of cheeses.

"You don't get good cheeses in this region. This is goat cheese," Juan de Dios said.

"No, we won't be getting any cheese of the region until the rains begin and the cattlemen can milk their cows, but these are good dairy cheeses made by the Mennonites of Chihuahua and good afternoon to you, Juan de Dios," Poncho said in his gentlemanly manner.

Juan de Dios never deigned to call anyone by name. He did not bother to remember the names of individuals. All men and women were fulanos, John or Mary Does and just so-and-sos to him, and they either helped him to hang other fulanos or they were hung themselves. He took out a new pocket knife I and cut a large wedge from a cheese. Poncho whipped a large sheet of wrapping paper from the stack on the counter and laid the cheese on it. He did not wrap it in case Juan de Dios should want to cut more for himself. He cleaned the cheese crumbs from around the scars the knife had made on his counter and dropped them into a can on the floor. He watched Juan de Dios fill his mouth with large bites of cheese.

"I need four men, four saddle horses, and a pack horse to go up and get that murderer who killed the fulano at Avena," Juan de Dios said, clamping on his bite of cheese. "Get them for me right away."

"Avena is in Chihuahua and not in the jurisdiction of this Municipality," Poncho answered. "I have no authority yet."

"He has to come this way. All those people come this way. They never go to Chihuahua."

"Who knows where he'll go? He doesn't have to leave the Sierra. He doesn't know anything about towns. Why should he come this way?"

"This should be of concern to you. I come to you because I want to catch that killer and you are the man I trust to help me."

"Thank you. You honor me, but I have no intention of going into Chihuahua, nor have I any intention of asking any of our men to go."

"I order you to. If you don't help me because I ask you nicely, then you are going to do it because I'll make you do it."

Juan de Dios laid his hand on his pistol. "Either way, you will do as I say."

Poncho did not look at the pistol. "I know you are a murderer, Juan de Dios. Are you going to kill us all if we don't obey you?"

"I didn't come here to kill you. I came to organize a party to catch a murderer. I'll be severe with anyone who hinders me."

"I know your parties. You killed my cousin at Calabasitas thirty years ago. He was guilty of nothing."

"He was culpable. He ran."

"He ran because you frightened him."

"He ran because he was guilty and knew I was going to hang him."

"He ran because he was leading a burro downhill loaded with corn leaves and their rustling muted the sound of your horse until you surprised him swinging a machete at him."

"I was forced to chase him horseback all the way into his house. If I had not caught him inside the house he would have killed me. I stopped him inches from his rifle. He intended to kill me, otherwise why did he want the rifle? That was enough for me to hang him, even if he wasn't already a murderer."

"Vilely, you forced him to try to protect himself. Vilely, you hung an innocent man."

"He was never proven innocent. I wasn't the only man there. Several men were in the party."

"You tied him and refused to allow his child to give him water. You hung him in front of his children."

"He didn't need water. He had, at the most, fifteen minutes to live. Water was scarce at his hovel. Anyone can go fifteen minutes without water."

"Go try your shitting fire on someone else, Cagalumbre. You'll find no one in this town to help you hang a man."

"I'll find help. When I'm through I'll take you back to Rio Alamos for judgment."

"If you take me back I'll be the first man you ever took to trial. You have never been man enough to take a man to trial. Take a bus back to Rio Alamos. You are no longer an officer with any authority here or anywhere. You were retired to the great jubilation of everyone in this region."

Juan de Dios showed Poncho a credential he carried in the large pocket of his military shirt. "You see this credential?" said he. "This credential is authority for me to call out army troops if necessary.'

"Call them then and leave us alone."

"You'll answer to me when this is over."

Juan de Dios put away his credential and turned to leave.

"You owe for the cheese," Poncho said, smiling.

"Put it on my bill," said Juan de Dios. Poncho had not expected payment. Juan de Dios had never paid for a cheese in his life. He considered himself a guest of the nation. He walked out and Poncho wrapped the cheese in brown paper. He would give it to someone who did not know Juan de Dios had handled it.

* * *

Juan de Dios knew exactly where to go to get the men he needed. He walked in the hot sun across the treeless plaza of San Bernardo. He had spent his life in featureless places, places where he encountered no trees, no sidewalks, no lights, no streets, no pavement, no smiles, no bandstands. This San Bernardo was for him only a place marked by squat housings in which leaderless, ambitionless slugs huddled for breeding and eating while they waited for the mule train and cattle commerce of the Sierra. This community was waiting for cows and mules with its mouth open like a nest of squabs.

The man he was about to see, Don Jilo Mendivil, was the biggest squab. Juan de Dios walked up the iron steps to Don Jilo's store and struck his military heels in cadence to announce himself. Don Jilo was in a dark corner behind the counter with his back to the door. His fat daughter faced Juan de Dios with the countenance of a cow. Juan de Dios skimmed a copper coin across the counter at the girl. "Soda," he ordered. The coin bounced off the girl's stomach and stayed on the counter.

"One peso," said girl. "Fifty centavos more."

"By the law of prices you cannot charge me more than a tostón for soda," Juan de Dios said. "Bring soda." The girl looked to her father for support.

Don Jilo turned. "Holo, Don Juan!" he said and hurried forward, reaching for the hand of Juan de Dios. Juan de Dios ignored the hand."Hombre, Juan, it gives me pleasure to see you. How long has it been since you were in our little town? I heard you retired. Now you are resting and complimenting us with a nice visit."

Juan de Dios forced himself to smile at the weakling Jilo who was, after all, mayor of the town. "I'm here on federal business, and I've come to you, as usual, for help," Juan de Dios said.

"Of course, Juan de Dios. I'll serve you in any manner in which I am authorized. Unfortunately you come at a busy time and my commerce is taking all my energy. But what is it? In what manner may I be of service?"

"You'll have to leave your little commerce and come with me to procure men and horses for an expedition to bring back the Avena killer."

"Ah, there I don't know if I can help you, Juan. I just turned my horses out. The country is so dry we have no pasture. No one keeps any horses around the town. The traffic has eaten all our pasture. Anyway I don't think there's any way we can go after that boy who committed the murder. He doesn't pertain to us. He pertains to Chihuahua."

"You move yourself from behind that counter, put on your hat, arm yourself, and come with me, immediately," Juan de Dios ordered, slamming his Est on the counter.

"Of course, Juan. I'm at your service," said Don Jilo, taking his hat and pistol from behind the counter. "We'll go right now." He turned to his daughter. "Notify your mother. Official business."

Don Jilo and Juan de Dios crossed the plaza toward loafers playing cards on the porch of a restaurant. Four of the men at the card table were employees of Don Jilo. They were not steady workers, but he employed them for short seasons of work that would not endure. He never asked them to do any work that could not be finished long before dark. They would not start any work if they knew they could not look up at any time during the day and see the end of it. Their hearts quit on them the first time they looked up and saw each step and stooping over would be the same every five minutes on into infinity. They didn't like working stooped over, uphill or through brush.

The four card players gazed in bad humor at the approach of Don Jilo. Within the next five minutes all four became recruits in the man hunt. In Juan de Dios they found a leader, and since he was brought to them by Don Jilo they knew they would be paid and fed. They hurried to their homes and got reatas and guns. They had been offered pay for the opportunity to become heroes.

Juan de Dios, his four recruits, and eight of their town dogs walked with the peón of Don Jilo away from San Bernardo. They were going for the horses they would use in tracking down Chombe Servín. The four recruits were not accustomed to working with the peón of Don Jilo. The peón was a bachelor, a quiet Indian who never conversed with anyone, had no friends, and was available to perform any errand Don Jilo called on him to do, night or day. He earned a steady salary with Don
Jilo, also a small room in which to sleep and three plates of food a day from Don Jilo's kitchen.

The four recruits were capitalists. They would not work for Don Jilo unless he guaranteed them a share of the venture, whether he made money or not. Working for shares entitled them to Don Jilo's trust and finances and enabled them to steal from him.

On this venture they would ride Don Jilo's good saddle horses, eat Don Jilo's provisions, be paid to become heroes chasing the fearful murderer for as many weeks as they could prolong his running without ever meeting up with him or seeing his track. They knew if the track got too hot they could lose it. They were not so foolish as to risk the wages or their lives by catching up to the murderer. They would pursue, and pursue, and pursue in the company of Juan de Dios who was the most famous of relentless pursuers. The company of Juan de Dios would make a legend in the region and enable the four men to take some credit for the capture of the murderer when he was finally caught. This was the kind of job the four capitalists were best at performing. They could lead Juan de Dios around, hold their pace to his, and know the job would endure as long as they pleased.

The four capitalists were too young ever to have been on a real hanging party led by Juan de Dios. If they had known him when he was forty years old and hanging people they would have run away to hide when they saw him get down off the bus that morning. They had heard the legends of Juan de Dios from their elders. They had never respected their elders, least of all when they were telling tales no intelligent youngster and future capitalist who used his head to get along could possibly believe. Now, looking at the real Juan de Dios, they saw a pale old man who wore a pistol so big and heavy the carrying of it was dangerous to his health, whose sweat was causing the whitewash on his new straw hat to run into his eyes and stucco them, and whose fragile feet in town shoes slapped thinly on the ground. After one mile of walking, two of the men who had gone ahead of the others began laughing so hard they had to sit down and rest because one of them had thought up a new name for Juan de Dios. He called him, "Patas de baraja, "meaning, "Feet like playing cards." The other two capitalists caught up to them, heard the name and hurried on, laughing with their heads together, but compassionately not looking back at Juan de Dios. The two labelers got up and went on before Juan de Dios arrived at their resting spot without sharing their joke with him.

"Laughing at me," murmured Juan de Dios, who had thought he would allow himself to rest when he arrived at the rocks the jokesters were sitting on. "Lack of respect this early in the project is bad." He looked down at the rocks and saw they would be comfortable places to sit. Rocks warmed by the sun were good places for him to sit because they comforted his hemorrhoids, which now were being agitated by dust. He moved on, not realizing great movement because his tender white feet in his thin, hot oxfords were no longer good at finding steps for the columns of his fat legs. He could barely swing the legs forward uphill, and his soles never planted themselves evenly on the rocky ground. Not one step ever placed itself where it should, as a playing card dealt on a trail could never lie flat. They turned, bounced, returned, flopped, and teetered on their edges.

He looked at his deputies who seemed to be racing away from him, their heads down as they conversed secretly to one another, too far ahead for him to hear what they were saying, going so far ahead they soon would leave him out of sight. He grunted and said, "How much farther?" He cleared his throat, dared not stop, for one step lost would put him completely out of hearing, made his voice gruff, and said, "Wait, now!" The two closest to him turned to him. "How much farther?" he repeated.

"¿Mande?" the least insolent of the two said with some respect, as though truly waiting on the mandate of Juan de Dios.

Juan de Dios stopped and straightened his back, his spine being the only part of him he could still control. He beckoned abruptly to the man who had answered him in the same way he would beckon to a shoeshine boy. He kept silent until the man stood close to him. "Where are you leading me?" he asked. "I thought you said the horses were near town. What are you trying to do, walk me to death?"

"But the horses are close. See, we only have to climb this hill, go through the pass there and down the other side to the ranch of Bacajaqui. You can rest there while we get the horses and send the mule back to San Bernardo for our saddles and provisions."

"¡Qué Bacajaqui, ni qué caballajaqui! Don't cow me a jaqui nor horse me a jaqui! All this walking could have been saved me. I should have stayed in San Bernardo near a phone and other communication. This trekking is typical of you cheritos, bean-fed to bean-brained ranchers. You walk a thousand kilometers laughing and talking so you can lay down and rest when you get to the place where the work should begin."

"But the ranch at Bacajaqui has a telephone, Jefe. You said you needed exclusive use of a telephone at your headquarters. The ranch belongs to my father-in-law. You will be well attended there."

"Fine. This is my wish," Juan de Dios said, stepping out again. "Lead the way then. But if it is much farther you and your companions are going to begin earning your pay as pack animals by carrying me. We'll see if you are good for that."

The hours of walking over the pass and down into the canyon of Bacajaqui were the most tortured of the life of Juan de Dios. He did not thank the ranch women for the coffee they served him nor the cot they gave him to rest on when he arrived. He had spent himself in wasting an entire day, was forced to wait longer on these Indians for the horses he needed, and was so sore and tired he was unable to supervise them further to hurry them. He slept through the afternoon while the four capitalists and the peón went after the horses.

The peón of Don Jilo found the track of the bald-faced mule in the canyon of Bacajaqui. The mule had joined a band of mares and run with them up the canyon. The capitalists joined him and hurried on the track. They hurried for the first time that day. The men had only enough light remaining in the day to find and catch the mule. They would have to take him back to Bacajaqui in the dark and use him to wrangle the saddle horses the next morning. They were beginning to feel ashamed that they were taking so long to catch one mule. They did pride themselves in being able to procure animals from the brush when they wanted them. They could only excuse themselves because Patas de Baraja had held down their pace. If he became angry with them they could find themselves without a job before they had a chance to become heroes.

The canyon was long. Someone was going to have to get ahead of the band and turn it into a box canyon called Ojo de Agua, or they were going to be following the mares all the way into the state of Chihuahua.

The peón went out of the canyon, got on the rim, saw the mares as they were nearing Ojo de Agua, ran hard to get ahead of them, and turned them into the box canyon. The eight dogs caught up to him, passed him, and ran into the box canyon after the mares, raising a scandal of barking. The pain stopped and waited for the capitalists at the mouth of Ojo de Agua. The dogs came back and lay around him panting.

Ojo de Agua was only one hundred meters long but so deep in sheer, black, obsidianlike rock that the clear pool of water in the end was in shade all the time except at noon on summer days. The vainoro was so thick in the canyon that a machete trail had to be cleared through it each year so livestock could water there. A large chapote tree grew halfway to the spring and its heavy top was even with the rim of the canyon. The trunk of the chapote was fifteen meters in diameter, its top was as wide as the canyon, and its boughs and leaves were so dense a man could not see past the bottom branches of the tree. The chapote of Ojo de Agua was a king of trees and had definite fame as a great tree in a region where immense trees were common.

The box canyon of Ojo de Agua, though short and lying by the much-used trail of Bacajaqui, was a wild place seldom entered by the people of the region. The people were accustomed to the wilds of the Sierra, respected them, even loved them, though they never voiced this love. But respect was the only feeling they had for Ojo de Agua. Ojo de Agua was a place where predators trapped livestock. A place for big snakes, Gila monsters, lions, vipers, and other vicious beings that hid there to prey and to water. A man stooping and crawling in that canyon was not in his most defensible position.

Men had entered Ojo de Agua without meaning to, from the top. The brush around the rim of the canyon was impenetrable and a man had to stand on the brink of the rim to see the chasm. If a man happened on the end of the canyon above the pool, he did not see the eye of the pool unless he was leaning dangerously over the brink. A goatherd once stepped into the canyon with every confidence his next step was going to be on smooth green matting. He was looking for a stray goat, found him, and saw him run ahead and disappear. He thought the goat had run across a clean open space covered by a matting of thick green leaves. The goatherd, wondering that he had never seen the matted space, stepped into the top of the chapote of Ojo de Agua expecting solid turf. He caught himself as he fell through the lower branches, broke his fall, and landed hard but unhurt beside the goat. The goat, who had no hands with which to catch at branches, was lying dead of a broken neck at the bottom of the tree.

These were the reasons why the peón of Don Jilo was not going into Ojo de Agua, and the reasons the dogs had calmed themselves and returned to pant close at his feet without smiling or looking at him. The peón watched the arrival of the capitalists and listened to them make their plans for capture of the ba1d-faced mule.

"I'll go in with one of you," said the man everyone called El Puros Ojos, All-Eyes. He was called El Puros Ojos because his bulging green eyes took up half the space of his face. His face was all shining green orbs in dark and cavernous sockets. He was the most enterprising of the four, the most mobile, the most cynical, and the one who won all the card games. He took the initiative in assuming the mantle of hero.

"The other two of you will remain here," he said. "Be ready with your reatas to catch the mule when he comes out if we miss him at the spring. Turn him back into the Ojo de Agua if you miss. Four of us heroes with reatas should have no trouble catching one bald-faced mule." He started into the canyon, sensed he was alone and turned to see who would come with him. No one had moved, not even the dogs. The dogs and the other capitalists were looking at infinity. The peón was looking at the ground.

"Accompany me," El Puros Ojos ordered the peón.

The peón looked away until El Puros Ojos thought he was not going to answer. Then the peón shifted his feet until they were planted comfortably in the sand and said, "I won't go. Not even for your mother."

"Well, come on, one of you heroes!" El Puros Ojos said to his companions.

"I guess I'll go," said the one whose father-in-law owned the ranch at Bacajaqui. "I don't like the place, but I've been there before and nothing happened to me." He moved quickly, like a man plunging into a cold bath, and a moment later the two men were stooping and grappling through the vainoro. The dogs, brave with the example of men, passed them and moved ahead of them out of sight.

El Puros Ojos and his companion tired of the trail before they reached the chapote. They stopped to rest and smoke. They heard the dogs raising a new scandal over some inhabitant of the chapote. El Puros Ojos turned to see up the trail. He heard a dog cry, hurt. He saw the dogs suddenly, very close in a bunch, running at him as fast as eight dogs can run and stay together. He had time to raise himself before they hit him. The pack cried when it saw its way blocked, rammed El Puros Ojos, knocked him aside and cut eight trails over his companion as they snapped at him and plowed furrows with worn claws through his clothing and through his scalp and carried his hat away floating over their backs.

"Look at them, think of them, the dogs!" said El Puros Olos in his surprise.

"¡Perros, hijas de lu chingada!" said his companion, touching gingerly the scratches and right of ways the dogs had cut through his hair.

"What sent the dogs out in such a hurry?" called one of the men who had stayed in the mouth of the canyon.

"¿. . . . sabe?" drawled El Puros Ojos, not caring if he was heard. "Who knows?"

"They came out like a load of buckshot! They didn't stop. I think they've gone home." The men outside Ojo de Agua were laughing.

El Puros Ojos and his companion crawled to the chapote where they could stand and straighten their backs. They saw the tracks of the dogs where they had been turned back from the tree. The two men looked into the tree.

"What scared the dogs, Ojos?" El Puros Ojos' companion only glanced into the tree. He did not search it well.

"¿Quién sabe?" said El Puros Ojos, not looking at his friend. He had begun to search the tree conscientiously with his good eyes and had stopped doing it without consciously knowing his reason for stopping. "Probably a solitario. Any dog who has ever faced El Solitario and survived will run home when he encounters another."

The two men went on to the pool of Ojo de Agua. The mares turned back from the pool and stampeded past them. The men missed their loops at the bald-faced mule.

"There they go!" shouted El Puros Ojos to warn the men at the mouth of the canyon. He and his companion heard the grunting, blaring squeal of a mule echo quickly, sharply in the canyon.

"Be ready! They're going fast," El Puros Ojos called again. He heard the hooves of the band striking through the canyon, the bodies hurtling, rebounding, falling, breaking through in the mindless, headlong way horses stampede. He heard the shouts and low coaxing of the men outside Ojo de Agua as the mares appeared. He then heard their profanity when the mares escaped. The canyon was silent.

"And the mule?" he heard one of the men ask the other.

"And the mule?" they both shouted at El Puros Ojos.

"Wasn't he with them?" shouted El Puros Ojos. "He was behind the mares."

"He didn't come out."

“We'll see to it! Be ready!" El Puros Ojos shouted these instructions but did not move. He and his companion were remembering the squeal of a mule. El Puros Ojos stared at his friend.

"Have you ever seen the devil, Ojos?" asked the companion.

"I'm not sure."

"Look at your face in the pool, man."

"¡Madre!" scoffed El Puros Ojos. "Let's get out of here."

They found the mule dead at the foot of the chapote with one side of his white face caved in.

"What kind of animal does that?" asked the friend of El Puros Oios.

"Tigre, " said El Puros Ojos, staring at the mule.

"How did he know we wanted the bald-faced mule?"

"¡ . . . saaaabe!"

"Shall we skin him for the meat and hide?"

"Of course, let's stay here and wait for a tigre to fall on us."

"Will he come back?"

"Has he gone? You want to wait and see? Stay if you want to. I don't like the meat of mule."

The two men did not find the brush so thick or tiring on the way out of Ojo de Agua.

* * *

Juan de Dios realized he had failed when he hobbled back to San Bernardo the next evening alone. After they said they had lost their wrangling mule to a tigre, his recruits had gone that moming on foot to find the saddle horses. Juan de Dios waited the entire day and the four men did not return. At sundown, he left Bacajaqui for San Bernardo.

He wet his feet in the dark in the stream below San Bernardo because he stepped into the water before he saw it or remembered it or cared it was there. He hurried, extravagant of his last reserves of energy when he saw the lights of Poncho Montenegro's store. He remembered Poncho's cheeses. The women at Bacajaqui had given him only refried beans and corn tortillas while he was there. They had no other food. He got no more coffee after breakfast that morning because the women said they had no more coffee. He felt a conspiracy had been armed against him. The famous private telephone of Bacajaqui was on one line that served over fifty telephones in the Sierra Madre from San Bernardo to Chinipas to Arechuyvo.

He climbed the hill to Poncho's store and saw five strong saddled mules standing in the lamplight from the door. He went inside and sat on a sack of beans before anyone could notice the agony he suffered walking. Five mountain men were relaxing in the store with Poncho. They stopped talking and looked at Juan de Dios. Poncho greeted him, Cut him a wedge of cheese, and handed it to him. Juan de Dios did not thank him.

"Have you seen my men?" Juan de Dios asked Poncho.

"They've not returned, Juan de Dios. At least I've not seen them."

"They've deserted me. Now, instead of going back with me to Rio Alamos as representatives of the government, they'll be going as my prisoners to be punished."

"They'll probably return soon, Juan de Dios," Poncho said gently.

"I'm not concerned about them any more. They're deserters. I'm going on with my business. Who owns those Five mules outside?"

"They're ours," said a tall mountain man at the counter. "At your service."

"You bet your sweet mother those mules are at my service. I hate a mule. A mule is a natural deserter. But it appears to me I'm surrounded by mules and deserters. Therefore, I'm going to commandeer these mules for the time being, and I'm going to call for federal soldiers. We'll see if this population of mules in San Bernardo can cooperate under martial law."

"And your authority?" asked the tall mountain man.

"I am Juan de Dios Felix, Federal Commissioner of this district."

"No. You are not the commissioner of any district," said the mountain man, leaning against the counter comfortably.

"What? You don't know who I am? Ask the storekeeper."

"I would like to see your credentials?"

"And you? Who are you to question me?"

"I am the chief of Federal Judicial Police for this region."

"You? With your huaraches and leather chaparreras and mules? You don't even feel the spurs on your heels because of the dirt and calluses."

"Si, Señor, I do."

Juan de Dios looked closely at the tall man, investigated the faces of the other four men. All the faces looked back at him impassively. He found the proof of the mountain man's claim in the faces. He did not like good law enforcers. They were responsible for his being filed away in his dark rooms in Rio Alamos. "Well, thank God," Juan de Dios bluffed. "Now I'll have the assistance of real professionals."

"May I please see the credential you have been showing to prove your authority?" asked the tall man.

"Of course," said Juan de Dios, handing him the over-sized card. The eagle and serpent and red, white, and green colors of Mexico on the credential flashed importantly in his hand.

The tall man examined it a moment and pocketed it.

"This card is nothing but a membership card for the association of retired officials," he said. "You have no authority here and you have abused the right to carry this card. You will hand me your pistol and return to Rio Alamos."

Juan de Dios meekly, carefully, handed over his pistol.

"But I can be of help to you," said he. "You have to learn how to lead these people. I have much experience." He found he could not keep his voice level or his backbone straight any more. His feet hurt so badly he felt like weeping.

"Listen carefully, sir," said the tall man as he slid the pistol into a saddlebag on the counter. "You will leave San Bernardo by the earliest public conveyance. I hope you understand my order. The next bus. You will return to your home and await the orders of the Federal Commissioner. You will speak to no one, give no orders. You will get out of sight or I will send you back in irons under guard."

"And you, huararhúdo? I have yet to be shown your credentials. What right have you to give me orders?"

The tall man turned away, thanked Poncho Montenegro, paid him for provisions, and walked out with his men. Juan de Dios sat still, alarmed that he might be facing a jail sentence for his bullying. He knew the law. He had bullied himself into losing his pistol, hurting his feet, and probably going to a jail containing his enemies. In that moment, at the end of his life, he realized he was a fool and tears formed in his eyes.

Poncho Montenegro had been moving back and forth from a back room and now came around from behind the counter. He set a chair and a small table covered with a clean tablecloth in front of the old man. He laid a hot supper and a glass of mezcal on the table.

"Your supper, Juan de Dios," Poncho said gently. "You are tired, so take your time and drink the mezcal so you'll have a good appetite."

Juan de Dios reached absently for the glass. "Good," said Poncho. "I'll have your bed ready when you want to rest." He walked toward the back room and left the old man alone.

Juan de Dios raised his head. "Thank you," he said weakly. He cleared his throat. "Thank you, Poncho," he said clearly.

Chombe Servín giggled softly when he saw the five men mount their mules and ride away from the light of the store. He and Celestino were hiding from them in a corral behind Poncho's warehouse.

"How can you laugh, Chombe?" Celestino asked.

"I have money. I am safe in the dark. I have a good little gatito, little cat servant, in you. Poncho paid you well for the beef of Juan Vogel's barren cow."

"Fifteen hundred pesos is not a good price for 150 kilos of meat. He has always given me a better price for my beef."

"He knows you are a thief. He's not fool enough to believe this is your own beef you are passing through his back door at night. You were stupid not to ask more money if you thought he was cheating you."

"He'll tell on me if I argue prices with him."

"He'll tell no one. I'll kill him before he does that. Besides, he would never confess to the law that he sells beef he buys in the night from a coward like you."

"Poncho is a good man. He extends credit to everyone. If every man who owes him would pay him he would not have to buy stolen beef."

"Poor baby! Get our saddle horses and the pack mule and go home. I'm going to follow the judicial to their camp."

"You'll be caught."

Chombe laughed. "No. They'll have a fire to comfort them. I'll watch them, listen to them. Go to any fire in the night as I do and you'll find how close you can get and how much you can learn without being discovered."

"Where will you go after you spy on the judicial?"

"To Guasaremos to spy on the vaqueros of Juan Vogel and take the fat, strong cattle they miss gathering."

"And me? What about my share of the money?"

"You go home to your fat wife and keep quiet as you always do. I'm grateful to that woman. When you are with her you never open your mouth."

"And money?"

Chombe handed him four banknotes off the roll Poncho had paid Celestino for the meat. Celestino held them close to his face, rubbing them carefully to see if any had stuck together. Finally, he was sure they were only four.

"Four hundred pesos. Is that all you give me? This is our third beef. I need my whole share."

"Four hundred pesos is better than being castrated with a sharp stick, isn't it?" Chombe laughed at Celestino in the dark as Celestino hurried away. Chombe the salamander had become a wolf.

15

The red rooster of Las Animas went early to the swept ground of the patio under the nacapúl tree. He spoke with a rolling growl of enthusiasm. He stamped in workmanlike exploration of the clean ground, knowing nothing was lying there to eat. He was only working the ground to get his hens out of the trees, working a fantasy that only roosters believe. He scratched and pecked without touching the ground to dirty his beak while he kept his eye on the hens in the tree. The hens were awake but had not decided to descend, and they were not fooled by the rooster into believing he was uncovering nice breakfasts for them. They knew they would have to begin another day by submitting to the rooster if he could catch them when they flew down. He did this every morning. He went through the sham he believed got his hens out of the tree. The hens knew he was there waiting for them to alight so he could breed them. Each would choose her moment to alight after the stillness of sleeping left her and she became anxious to get past the pleasure of the rooster and begin her day's business.

"La Prieta will fly down first," Adancito said to his little brother, Robe, the Governor. The boys were sitting close together for warmth, their naked bellies showing over their belts. They did not acknowledge a need for sweaters after they had come away from their blankets a half hour before sunup.

"La Prieta?" the Governor asked, searching the nacapúl and pointing his finger at the black hen.

"Yes, the old black hen, Robe. She is the madrugadora, the earliest riser and the hardest worker."

La Prieta began to cluck and move impatiently along the limb, leaving the spot her feet had warmed for the cold and less secure thin end of the limb. She was loath to leave her feet for her wings, which at best only barely slowed her plummeting body to the ground. She always toppled to a position most vulnerable to the waiting rooster. After a harsh landing on stiff feet she could always expect a harsher reception by her master who danced severely on her back and drew blood with his beak from the top of her head.

A gust of a small breeze convinced her to fly while she could control her attitude and give her the most distance from El Gallo. El Gallo, anticipating the wind, velocity, range, and direction of his hen ran to intercept her on landing. She descended with her motor squawking. She bounced on her brisket and froze in submission to his digging beak, prancing feet, and warm, quick quivers.

"You see, Robe. La Prieta always lets herself be stepped on first," Adancito said. "Now the red hen, La Colorada, will come down while he is crowing and being proud of himself. Watch her! See! You dumb rooster! You let La Colorada get away again," Adancito scolded El Gallo. El Gallo watched the fat red hen land on the other side of the patio and run for cover in the calf corral. He stretched his neck and whipped his tall comb from side to side and ran after her a few steps without forgetting he still had three more wives in the tree. He almost missed La Canela, the youngest, a cinnamon-colored hen. She was still a light pullet and a good flier. Thinking she would escape her duties to El Gallo she flew from the topmost branches of the nacapúl gathering all the speed and momentum she could muster to clear the patio. In the last instant of flight she looked into the eye of El Gallo and saw she was lost. She veered away from him with great effort still flying and then looked into the eyes of the boys. Silent and wild-eyed she struck the ground and bounced off the coop for setting hens. She spun on one wing and lolled, stunned, long enough for El Gallo to take his pleasures of her.

"¡Ay, La Güera!" Adancito warned El Gallo, but the cock had not completed his strutting and blinking of eyes over La Canela to be effective in a chase after La Güera, the white hen. La Güera landed and outran him to the shelter of the stable of El Toro Buey. At the edge of the patio El Gallo turned quickly to the sound of the wings of La Grulla, his favorite, a smoke-colored young hen with scrolled feathers. She alighted softly, walked a second with stately regard for El Gallo's approach and then squatted with tail up and head down while El Gallo sliced his wing tips in half circles on the ground in a dance for her.

"Ya son todas. That's all of them, Robe," said Adancito.

"Adán," Lucrecia's soft voice called. "Adancito." The boy did not answer. He knew he would betray himself to discomfort if he did. His mother was warming water for baths. If he stalled he could at least take his bath after the sun came up.

"Adán," persisted his mother. His mother always called him softly, with patience in her voice. Adancito frowned and picked with much care at a perfectly whole and healthy toe.

"Adancito."

"Noooooooooo! I don't want to bathe," Adancito sang mournfully. "Bathe my brothers first."

"But I don't want you to bathe yet, Adán. I want you to catch the turkey gobbler. Catch me the gobbler, run, won't you?"

Adancito thumped the toe against the patio, too surprised at this reprieve to become suddenly obedient to his mother.

"Noooooooooo!" he cried.

"Meat!" exclaimed the Governor matter-of-factly and pointed a soft but rigid finger at the gobbler who had appeared in the patio as though summoned. El Guijolo was preening with his chin tucked in, his nose pecker drooping like a slobber, his bald head and wattled neck changing colors from blue to red, his tail feathers erect and fanning while they flashed their copper tints, his pace that of a king trailing a long cloak. Adancito looked at him and could not believe this patriarchal bird could be transformed into meat in the pot and bones in a soup.

"Hurry, Adán. Your father will be here before we are ready," Lucrecia said gently. At that moment the sun appeared and Adán Martinillo threw his shadow over his sons. The boys looked up at the tower of their father and they smiled, surprised so much they could say nothing as he scooped them off the ground with his hug, kissed their necks, and grinned in their faces. "Quiet!" he urged them as he carried them toward the kitchen.

"Papá, " said the Governor, sticking his pointing finger into his father's mouth. Adán bit it gently and licked it before it got away from him.

"Yes, your father, little son," Lucrecia said quietly, thoughtfully, unaware Adán was home. She watched a kettle, waiting for its water to boil, her soft hands idling over the towels she would use to dry her sons. She picked one with frayed edges and pulled loose threads away until she could see how best to repair it. While she was absently examining them her husband walked up behind her carrying their sons and kissed her softly on her neck. She was not surprised. She walked away from him shaking her head. The large gold earrings she wore because she knew he liked them flashed against her high and glowing cheekbones.

"Noooooooooo, stranger," she said, and he followed her along grinning and biting the back of her dress and letting it snap away, biting her hair, snufling at her neck. He set his squirming sons down then and she smiled and turned to kiss him so quickly he thought she might be going for his throat with her teeth. Her earrings struck him beside his eyes and her clear, dark eyes glinted in the sunlight like agate.

16

Juan Vogel's camp at Guasaremos was in the deep bottom of a cone of mountains. He sat in the shade of a breezeway between the two main rooms of the house. He was smoking and watching his vaqueros drive a band of mules across the brightness of a dry cornfield at midmorning. The morning was getting hot, the sky clear as usual, but Juan Vogel, sitting like a boulder in the shade, felt a new humidity in the mountains. He watched his mounted vaqueros and the remuda of mules move slowly. The animals ambled through heat waves that distorted their forms. The shade where he sat was solid, but his canvas brush jacket bothered him because it was lined with wool. His leggings were hot on his legs, his short spurs heavy on his heels. He only moved to smoke and to light a new cigarette off the butt of the old one. He looked into the brightness of the level field and knew water was coming this day, the day of San Juan, the day that tradition held that rain should come but never did. This was Juan Vogel's saint's day.

The vaqueros corraled the mules in a high rock corral shaded by a great mesquite, caught their mounts for the day, led them to the house and saddled them. Juan Vogel still had not moved except to smoke. He heard the pounding of the engine of an airplane against the mountains long before the busy vaqueros did and still he did not move. He began to pluck out the hairs along the top of his mustache when the vaqueros saw the aircraft was circling the camp, descending into the cone of Guasaremos.

"Here he comes!" announced Neli Pesqueira happily.

"Who?" asked Juan Vogel, plucking his mustache.

"¿Quién sabe?" said Neli. "He's yellow and white."

"Is it El Bayito, the little buckskin plane?"

"Probably. Yes, it's El Bayito."

"Let's see," said Juan Vogel. He stood up, straightened his sore back, poked at the sorest spot on his spine with his thumb, and walked out to the edge of the portal. He leaned against an horcón and searched for the airplane in the sounds the engine made against the mountains. He saw the airplane circling against the brown velvet of Contreras mountain in morning shade. It banked against the mountain and descended into the basin, leveled over the long cornfield and pointed toward the house.

"El Bayito," said Juan Vogel. "The crazy maverick, Jim Kane."

"Is he going to land?"

"Where would he land? Who knows? He's crazy," said Juan Vogel.

"Here he comes. Here he comes. Here he comes," said Neli happily.

A parcel on a white streamer struck the patio violently, scattering the mules. A line, moist spray settled upon the men and animals as though to cool the confusion.

"Beer," snuffed Juan Vogel. A vaquero was already picking up two of the biggest parts of the bombardment and examining the smaller parts on the ground, which had skimmed and bounced away.

"Beer," said the vaquero, Ruelas. He picked up each can. They had all burst. He hurried to hold them upright to see if he could save some beer. Juan Vogel smoked and watched him.

"They all splattered," said Ruelas. "Lastima. A shame."

A whiteness stretched in a glide, rolled and tumbled, glinting against the clean sky. lt touched the ground in the field. Neli rode out, reached down without dismounting and picked it up. "A new hat," he called, smiling.

He rode back holding the hat carefully.

Ruelas picked up the smashed beer cartons. He grinned and took a whole beer out of a mass of cardboard. "One was saved. Felicitations," he said, handing a bent red can of hot beer to Juan Vogel.

"Happy saint's day. Here's a message"

Juan Vogel broke the top of the can open carefully and caught the foam in his mustache. "¡Chingado! " he said. He sipped at the beer as El Bayito rattled the house in salute. He did not look up.

He looked at a ruined envelope Ruelas had handed him. He took off his yellowed, broken, sweated hat, threw it behind him, and put on the new palm hat.

The address on the envelope in Jim Kane's handwriting read:

Sr. Juan Vogel
El Limbo,
Eternidad

He opened the envelope. A message from his wife read:

I am happy and content when my husband absents himself from this town.
Alicia Maria Vogel S.

"¡Chingado! " Juan Vogel said, and drank the rest of the beer.

"¡Nada! Not even one more beer with beer in it!" said Ruelas, who had been searching through the debris of the bombardment.

"We should have opened our mouths when we looked up," laughed Neli. "We might each have caught a drop."

"¡Chingado! " said Juan Vogel. "Where's Miguelito with the demijohn? We'll forget beer and remember our saint with his stuff."

"He's still sick," said Neli. He's crazy with the grippe and his own lechuguilla. He sent the boy to tell you to go up to his house."

"¡Chingado! " Juan Vogel saddled his mule and rode up the mountain toward Miguelito's house. He rode impatiently as always. He smoked to please himself and spurred the mare mule so that she strained continuously to keep pace with him. The hair on her flanks was shaved away in the spots his spurs worked on her. He passed under a big tree by a spring near Miguelito's house.

"Stop, Juanito!" a soft voice ordered. Juan Vogel reined the mule toward the sound. Miguelito was standing on a hill above the trail.

"Here's your drink," Miguelito said. He lowered the demijohn on his reata to the trail. Juan Vogel struck a match to a new cigarette and watched him carefully. Miguelito was staggering from weakness and fever. He was also very drunk.

"Come down and drink with me, Miguelito," Juan Vogel said. "Come to the shade. Today is my saint's day."

"No. No shade for me. The grippe. The rheum."

Juan Vogel laughed at him. "Come on. l brought your medicine."

"Your yori medicine gave me the rheum. All my people had the grippe. They didn't take your white man's medicine and they are well. I took it and I've got the rheum. I can't go to the shade. I can't go in my house."

"Why not? Go to your house if you are sick. All people stay in the house when they feel bad."

"The shade stiffens me. I don't want anyone to catch my rheum. I can't go home."

"But why not, man?"

"My people will stiffen as I have. They'll die."

"Man, don't be foolish. Take your medicine. You won't die. The grippe can hurt you and cause rheumatism, but it can't kill you. You have fever which causes your bones to ache and is worse because your bones have been broken."

"No, this is the stiffness of death and I don't want anyone to catch it. I'm on my way to my death now. I only stopped to give you your saint's day drink."

Juan Vogel laughed. "Well don't worry. The death is not far away from any of us. You're not alone."

"Don't think it is so easy."

"It's only hard when you are afraid and give up in the face of it."

"Dying is hard, don't think it isn't."

Juan Vogel reached down without dismounting and picked up the demijohn. He untied the reata from the handle. He spurred the mule so hard she scrambled frantically for footing on the rock. He laughed, uncorked the jug, and drank on his way.

17

Miguelito, the Guarijía, on his way to his death stopped once for a last look at his house. His mother's fire glowed out of the night. His mother's hands were caring for the fire. He climbed to the escarpment of Guasisaco where he had left his death long ago as a young man. He had once fallen from that escarpment trying to take a panal of honey. His mother's hands had saved him from his death. Now he felt his death claiming him and leading him back by the rheum in the bones he had broken in that fall. Time now for his death, no more, no less.

He built a fire at the place at the foot of the escarpment to subdue the clutching rheum. He sat close to the fire and stared into it while he rolled the smooth, tallowed braids of his companion reata in his fingers.

He knew every inch of his reata. He made very good reatas. This one was as fine as any he had made in his life. This one was probably the best one. He knew he could depend on it. He was not sorry he would never make another one. His mother knew his every thought and intention. She had watched him in the house as he kept his eyes away from his reata. She had known the minute he decided to use it to go to his death. She knew he could not work, so he could not say he was going to work and walk casually to the wall to take it. She had watched it carefully and shielded him from it. His mother believed his reata was his inseparable companion in his work and his life, and he would be sinful to use it in his death. He had feigned sleep and stolen it when his mother left the house.

He needed help to go to his death. His good reata was the only helpmate he trusted. The guasima tree bending away from the cliff would also help him. These were servants even of a Guarijía.

He allowed the fire to grow until it was so hot he had to move. He rose and walked to the tree. The trunk was smooth to a high fork. He climbed to the fork by bracing his feet against the cliff and his back against the trunk. He felt weak, dizzy, and weary. He felt like sleeping in the fork with the fire warming his face. He roused himself and caught himself around the neck with the loop of his reala. He tied the tail end of the reata to a branch. The heavy honda of the reata was so well made, the reata so alive, that he had to hold the noose tight so it would not fall open. Eyes on the fire, he slid off the branch. He kept his eyes on the fire, his hand on the honda of the noose. He landed with his feet and legs slack and broke his ankles and hips on a rock by the fire. He scattered the fire as he skidded through it. He fought at sparks that glowed through his shirt. He rolled and moaned off live coals, his trunk twisting away from his legs, his feet remaining dead in the coals. He dragged himself to a cool spot. He looked up at the branch and saw the reata hanging slack but still tied. He had given himself too much reata. No matter. He had not expected his death would be easy to meet again.

"What chingados do you think you are doing?" a voice from the darkness asked him.

His first sound in answer was a moan. He swallowed and held up his trembling head to see who had spoken. He could barely see through a new mist on his eyes. "Who?" he asked.

"Who do you care, idiot?"

"Don't come close to me. I'm sick. Stay there."

"Of course you're sick. You need help. I've come to help you. I am your death."

"My death is a lot of work."

"You are a fool. You could have summoned me without breaking yourself up. I didn't want you before when you were all broken. Why should I want you now?"

"I thought I wanted to die."

"You did not think. You ruined yourself with your carelessness. Can't you come to me in a respectable manner?"

"I can. Don't worry." Miguelito pulled himself toward the tree.

"On your belly. You should be stepped on like a snake, a grass snake. You have no fang, no colmillo, or brains with which to defend yourself."

"I can defend myself."

"You're helpless. I'll have to help you. You are going to die in an upright manner in spite of yourself."

A shadow came laughing and blocking the heat of the fire. Miguelito chilled. The shadow dragged him by the reata to the base of the tree. He was so small and light the dragging did not choke him. The shadow sat him against the tree and climbed the tree, grunting. The fire warmed Miguelito again. The reata tightened and his buttocks swung clear of the rock. He almost strangled, but he settled to the rock again. The shadow and the chill returned.

"¡Chingado! " the shadow laughed. "You're not dead yet? After all I've done to help you? Die then, but quickly."

Miguelito was lifted by the feet and swung away from the tree. He swung like a hammock until he strangled.

"¡Chingado! Didn't you leave anything at all for me to swallow?" asked Chombe Servin, panting over the corpse. He went through the pockets, found a handful of hard orange peelings and a small bottle of lechuguilla. He drank the wine, smashed the bottle against the rock, propped Miguelito against the tree, and went away laughing.

18

Lico, the mayordomo for the ranches of El Gringo Milligan, rode around the bottom of Contreras mountain listening to the belled animals. In his ride from Rancho Quemado the day before, he had been within continuous hearing of bells. The people of the Sierra were hanging bells on their livestock because of El Yoco. They believed a jaguar would not harm a belled animal.

Lico smiled cynically. He knew about tigres. What could these people know? Tigres were the monsters his people in Sinaloa lived with, not some old toothless lion that was probably starving about in these mountains. If this animal was a jaguar, Lico was the man who carried the equipment to get him. He carried a bule gourd, and a resined string, and El Gringo's .30-30 rifle with a telescopic sight. The string drawn through holes in the gourd threw out a sound exactly like the moan and growl of a jaguar. He had but one cartridge for the rifle; but one was enough for El Lico to dispense with any tigre of this region. He rode into the canyon of El Manzanillal and went straight to the highest trees in the bottom. The large trees grew thick and tall enough to keep back the underbrush. He picked a guasima easy to climb. He tied the mule, La Bomba, and unsaddled her beneath the guasima. He gave her enough rope so she could graze. He smiled again. The mule had been left on Contreras ranch by Juan Vogel so she could graze and recuperate after the heavy work of the roundup at Gilaremos. Lico had saddled her this day because he liked her generous pace. She was a refreshing change of mount from his lazy dun mule. La Bomba could rest here as well as anywhere. The grass was good here.

Lico climbed into the guasima like an ape with no pause for breath or foothold. He stopped climbing when he was so high the branches were becoming too thin to hold him. He sat in a comfortable fork and smiled with assuredness. He could see all the ground about him except the ground directly beneath the tree and the canyon behind him. He strained around to locate the mule. He could see her grazing far below him, unaware of him, in peace. He hung his water bule, loaded his rifle, and laid it across his lap. He lit his pipe of tobacco and threaded the string through the gourd. He looked around again and drew a deep, excited breath, the breath of an animal who has set his lure for the killing of another animal.

He drew the string and sounded the gourd softly. He strummed the deepest tones, the rarest, the most savage, the tones he imagined would most interest El Yoco. He paused and remained still in his lofty trap and listened for a change in the sounds of the canyon. He looked for La Bomba. She had turned away. He could only see her hips, but he could tell she was not grazing. She was very still, listening, afraid, even though she had probably never seen or heard a jaguar.

He played the siren for El Yoco all day. He strummed the gourd at long intervals until the wind changed and the sun was setting. Lico discovered he was tired and stiff. He looked down at the route he would take to descend from the tree. The trail back to his camp was not plain because it was not often used.

He had come early, wanting to work his lure until late at night, but he was tired now and dreading the ride to his camp through brush in the dark. He drew his string again, expertly, as he had done all day. He looked down at his route of climb again and decided he would leave and ride out before dark.

He heard the short, quiet rattle of rocks that a band of unshod mares makes when it is on the move to escape and is not pausing to graze, nurse, or drink. He felt the frightened silence of the band picking its way, hushing all careless noise, mouths closed and nostrils flared for quiet breathing, colts concentrated close under their dams. He saw the band as the mares moved down a hill and into the canyon with the burro mezo of Juan Vogel herding them from behind. The burro mezo, El Güero, stopped on the hill, turned and searched the trail behind him. He came on quickly, fleetly, almost daintily, with his head up. He was handsome as a stallion in his movements and no longer seemed to be the sunburned, paddle-footed, heavyheaded, lopeared jackass he was when among humans. Then Lico heard a rhythmic grunting moan behind the mares.

Lico was happy for a moment. What if a big jaguar had heard his siren and was moving the band toward Lico, thinking Lico was another of his own kind. El Yoco might be hoping to find a mate. He would be sending a band of mares as a dowry. Suddenly, Lico realized he should not be feeling comfortable and happy. He knew the jaguar drove his prey, channeled it, and then went ahead to wait and kill. El Yoco could be ahead of the mares by now. If he was ahead of the mares he was near Lico. Lico began to feel vulnerable in the back of his neck. He no longer felt that he was so great a trapper. He began to feel he should admit to himself that he knew little about tigres.

This, actually, was the first time in his life he had ever tried the gourd and string method of luring a jaguar. He had been in these mountains fifty years since deserting the army. He had only played with the gourd and string as a child with other children in the alleys of his pueblo. Now he was an old man of seventy alone in the top of a tree with night coming on. He looked down into the tree again, picking his escape route, but also watching the route of approach a jaguar would have to take to get El Lico. He set the gourd aside and took the rifle in his hands. He slumped into the fork to hide better, but he was so high he could not hide. He listened and heard his own heart and breathing. He no longer felt himself to be the cunning, hard-eyed hunter. Sounds in the thicket below him agitated him now. The sway of the tree no longer seemed supple. Its movement seemed jerky and afraid. The tree had become rigid, its bark and leaves were drying, its sounds had changed from healthy sighs to groans and creakings.

Lico's eyes grated with dryness and he closed them. He wanted tears in them. He could not believe he was finding himself dangerously high above the ground in an ancient tree with darkness near to bring the bright-eyed killers who hunted in the night. He could not believe the years of his life had pushed him on to this moment. He had never believed the devil jaguar who had chased him in his childhood make-believe games and made him giggle with excitement could be truly finding him now because of his favorite toy. He was an old man now who only loved to sit by the fire, ridicule his fellows, and puff on his pipe. He had never been a hunter. He had been a braggart. He had never been a soldier of the revolution, a bodyguard, a workingman, or even a reasonably intelligent man, as he had bragged throughout his life. He admitted this because at this moment, for the first time in fifty years, he felt he was about to lose his life.

The mule, La Bomba, made one rasping call to the band of mares and Lico shut his eyes tighter. The damned mule would discover him to a killer. He heard the mule fighting to free herself. He reasoned he should speak to her to calm her, but he did not. This was not a moment of reason. He was afraid for no reason. What reasonable man could believe that he, at a random point of his life, in this desolation, could climb a tree and call a jaguar to himself? No man who knew Lico could. Suddenly, exactly as Lico expected, the mule shrieked her death scream, fully and terribly. When her thrashings had stilled he opened his eyes. He looked down between his legs to watch the alley bordered by his thighs, which would be the way a barehanded killer would come to get him. He would not look away from that alley. He would not move. He would protect only himself by watching the way to his own throat. Then at the base of the tree he saw the serpentine lines of smoothly waving spots, the heavy head, the immediate, undeceived gaze of El Yoco. The gaze penetrated the space between Lico's legs, castrated him, raped him, and found his throat with such ease that Lico nearly fainted in surrender. El Yoco paused, made sure of his conquest, and moved on toward the mares, certain he had cleaned away all antagonists behind him.

The mares ran. El Güero, their master mezo, ripped their hides with his teeth and stopped them on the bare spot by the trail before they got out of the canyon. Over the hill, running downhill, they would have streamed out and scattered. He would have lost them. He circled them and drove them into the center of their own milling circle. He kept their heads in the center, their hindquarters on the outer circle until each had nowhere to run except into the heart of her own band. He kept himself between El Yoco and the band as El Yoco prowled and tried to force the band to panic. Lico watched, conscious of the rifle under the sweat of his hands. The rifle was too heavy for him to lift.

A mule colt scrambled out from under his dam and was pushed outside the band's protection. Finding no way to reenter, the colt looked for the source of his danger. El Yoco closed with El Güero, took both his shoulders in his claws and tried to roll him off his feet. El Güero had the advantage of being uphill. He struck El Yoco's jaws with a front hoof and wheeled away to kick at him. El Yoco went under the hooves and cut the mule colt away from the band. The colt ran over the hill with El Yoco at his flank. El Yoco was back before El Güero gained full control of the band again. El Güero left the band to charge El Yoco with his teeth. El Yoco dodged him easily and cut a mule filly away toward the thicket. He ran her to Lico's tree. He killed her there and relaxed over her, embracing her as he began to devour her. El Güero hurried his band away. In the night Lico listened to the jaguar feasting under the guasima. In the darkness Lico felt that he was part of El Yoco's repast. At times he fed and other times he was fed upon. At no time did he consider firing his rifle down into the darkness to show his displeasure. He was a willing accomplice of El Yoco's. Lico had no formal religion, but in that night he mumbled entreaties for his life to any power, good or bad, who would make El Yoco's feet take El Yoco's claws and jaws away so Lico could get down out of the tree and walk on the ground in peace. He became the complete supplicant, head bowed, knees aching, spine bent, eyes crying, voice begging, and ears giving testimony of the enormity of the appetite of the power below him. The feeding stopped before dawn. Lico began to voice his entreaties loudly and more exactly into the silence. He gathered all the dry branches near him, held them in bundles and lit them. He held these small torches before him like vigil lights and felt safer with fire to keep away badness, though the perimeter of his safety narrowed for him because he could not see past his fire. When he could no longer hold the flame, he waved the coals to make intricate patterns of fire in the night. When his supply of dry wood ran out he held his matches to his straw hat and sacrificed it with other parts of his clothing until the wind of dawn blew away his fire.

At dawn he watched for the emergence of El Yoco. He heard the sounds of dragging and saw El Yoco dragging La Bomba. El Yoco hauled her up Contreras mountain, concerned only with the obstacle of the mountain and the weight of La Bomba and not at all with Lico. When he was out of sight, Lico dropped the rifle to the ground and climbed down. He was stiff, shaky, and weak and just as he released his last hold to drop to the ground he caught his groin on a dead stub of a branch. He hurt so, he rolled near the remains of the colt in agony. After the pain subsided he took the trail down the canyon without looking back.

Lico followed the trail down to the Vogel camp at Guasaremos. Entering the basin of Guasaremos, Lico heard the high wail of keening women in mourning that fit the scream he had suppressed in the night and still carried in his breast every hurrying step he made. Juan Vogel and his vaqueros were at the ramada of Miguelito, the Guarijía. Miguelito had been washed and changed and laid out in the shade of the ramada. Lico went straight to the olla of fresh water and drank. He looked at the demijohn of lechuguilla between Juan Vogel's feet. Juan Vogel was looking at him with the same yellow penetration El Yoco had used on him the day before. Lico decided not to ask for the drink. He reached for the jug, and Juan Vogel moved his leg politely out of the way so he could take it. He drank a swallow and did not let it hit his stomach before he sent another after it. A woman brought him a chair and he sat down, hugging the whole demijohn of spirits to himself.

"Are you drunk, Lico?" asked Juan Vogel, dismantling him with his gaze. "Good morning to you, Lico. Can you speak?"

"An animal shocked me to make me this way," said Lico. He looked around him, craving comfort. He drank again.

"What animal?" asked Juan Vogel. The vaqueros were not leaving, though their mounts were saddled and ready. They stood in the shade of the ramada staring at Lico.

"A tigre. The largest I have ever seen."

"Where?"

"At El Manzanillal. He put me into a tree, and I watched him kill two of your mule colts and a full-grown saddle mule. He kept me in the tree all night."

"Which saddle mule?"

"I couldn't tell," lied Lico, and saw that Juan Vogel knew he was a liar. "At dawn I saw him dragging the mule toward the top of Contreras."

"And your rifle? Did you shoot him?"

"I only had one bullet."

"And?"

"Well, you know how expensive ammunition is here."

"What is it for, if not to kill a tigre cebado?

"I was admiring his strength so much I didn't have time to shoot before he was gone. I only had one shot-and the rifle, the caliber seemed so small. When I decided to shoot he got out of sight of me."

The vaqueros laughed. "The caliber of your anus was too small," said Neli Pesqueira. They laughed again.

"No," protested Lico. He watched them laugh at him without showing any rancor toward him. "Ah!" he huffed. "I have more brains than to take a shot that might only wound an animal like that when I don't have another to finish him to protect myself."

Juan Vogel, examining Lico, did not laugh. "How is it the Martinillo hunts with a single-shot .22?"

"Poor Martinillo. I don't say it because he isn't present, but he's a fool. He doesn't know about tigres. I do. Tigres are what we have in my country in Sinaloa--"

Juan Vogel laughed at him. "Yes, you have often told us about your tigres, " he said. His eyes were not laughing. "So you admit you saw a big tigre in our country, so far away from your country of the big tigres. "

"Yes."

"You watched him kill three head of my stock while you held a powerful rifle with a telescopic sight in your hands?"

"Yes, as I say, I never had a good clear shot, Juanito."

"But you did not shoot."

"No."

"What happened? You were too culón, too loose-boweled and invalidated from cowardice to shoot."

"Believe what you like. I admire the tigre. He is the most powerful and beautiful animal in the Sierra or anywhere. In my youth--"

"In your youth and again yesterday and again today you grew big lazy balls. And you became culón, you grew a large loose anus."

"And that's another of my misfortunes."

"I'm sure it's been a misfortune."

"No. Seriously. I injured my testicles climbing the tree. Even now they are swollen and aching."

"Why not? Your balls have always been the biggest part of you. They're so heavy they have kept you on your ass all your life. Sooner or later they had to catch on something when you tried to do anything."

"¡Quéhubo, hijos de la chingada!" shouted El Gringo Milligan, riding in. "Ah, Lico. Good. I'm glad you're here." He dismounted, looked again at Lico and saw the old man was weeping. "What's the matter?" he asked. "You, sorrowing for this Indian?"

"Nada, " drawled Juan Vogel, taking the jug away from Lico. "He hurt his balls or something. You'd better see about them. You're responsible for them, having caused them to grow so large through the years."

"What happened to you, Lico?" El Gringo asked.

"Man, I tell you nothing happened," said Juan Vogel. "La que se hace de noche, de dia aparece. The deeds of night become apparent in the day. Give his belly food. Food will tighten his culo, soothe his balls, and dry his tears."

Manuelito Espinoza shuffled over to the corpse of Miguelito. He wiped the hat off his head and fanned flies off Miguelito's face. He crossed his thumb and forefinger and blessed the body, the four corners of the ramada, the coiled reata, and himself.

He raised his eyes and spoke with a wail that matched the keening of the women:

Pobre el pobre, que al Ciela no va.
La Muelen aqui y lo muelen allá, amén.

Poor the poor man who to heaven won't go.
They grind him on earth and they grind him below, amen.

The first lightning and thunder of a storm that lasted only long enough to hide El Yoco's tracks from Adán Martinillo flashed and sounded. The Sierra's hopes for rain to stop the ruin of drouth were not realized. The rain barely settled the dust.

19

Adán felt weak and lazy the morning after the San Juan's day sprinkle of rain. He now had his excuses for not going after El Yoco. He was sick at home. The jaguar had not been seen, and the sprinkle had washed away his tracks. Adán stepped outside his house, stretched his limbs and coughed, indulging himself. He found his shovel and began breaking the ground in rows for a garden. He went inside for a drink of mezcal and had two drinks. He refilled his glass and took it with him, found his iron bar and went back to his garden. He sank the bar into the earth and turned his soil to air in the sun. He worked swiftly, wasting no motion with bar and shovel, until the ground was ready for planting. He led El Toro Buey with the canvas bota to his spring to clean it out of debris and silt. He came back to the house with the bota filled with fresh water. He went back to his garden to plant squash, pumpkin, beans, potatoes, sweet corn and tobacco, radish and jicama.

He was on his knees sweating and planting when the Mariposa dog barked to tell of someone's approach. He heard a mule walk into the yard. He didn't look up.

"¡Quéhubo, son of your so-and-so mother!" was the profane greeting the visitor shouted down at him. Adán stood up smiling and went to shake the hand of Pancho Milligan, El Gringo, owner of Rancho Quemado and the Contreras ranches.

"Goddammit, is there no coffee?" El Gringo asked. He mixed English profanity with Spanish obscenity.

"Yes, coffee, but not sitting your mule. You'll have to get down and sit at the table like a Christian."

Adán held the mule while the little man, showing only a few brown teeth in a grin and looking at Adán over horn-rimmed glasses said, "No, son of your copulated and disgraced mother, I'm going on. I have business. You think I come to this fornicated and disgraced mother of a mountain to talk to you, Goddammit?"

"Yes, gringo, you're staying for a meal in a home. What are you looking for this time? Dollars gringo, or pesos Mexican? You'll not be bothered by money here. Look what I do have to bother you." Adán offered the glass of mezcal. El Gringo lifted the glass, tilted his face to the sky, and drank.

"I guess I'll rest the beast awhile, cabrón, " El Gringo said. He dismounted stiffly. His tiny feet in miner's boots weighted with iron Chihuahua spurs touched the ground as though they would break. He handed Adán his reins and limped brittlely toward the house. A cloud of smoke trailed from the cigarette he sucked on. Uncombed gray hair thatched out from underneath his shapeless hat.

Adán walked behind El Gringo leading the mule. "If you would learn to ride a mule and not lose your way each time you ride alone you wouldn't take two days to make a half-day's journey, and you wouldn't always be so stiff and miserable when you stop at my house," Adán said. "After a lifetime in the Sierra I think you still look for street signs and white lines to guide you over these trails. Where do you come from this morning?"

"From Guasaremos and it's a mother of a trail because of that little rain. Goats couldn't manage that trail better than I have. It's the mother of a dirty trail. But I'll get to Rancho Quemado by my balls, though my ass is killing me. My buttocks feel stricken by smallpox, my anus is a blossoming rose of hemorrhoids. But I'll make it. That pinche mula is a helluva good mule!"

"You have a good chance to make it. You are only half a day lost out of your way this time. Half a day is about the time and distance you always make when you are lost."

Adán handed the reins to Adancito and told him to unsaddle and feed and water the mule. He escorted El Gringo into his house. El Gringo took a glass of mezcal from Lucrecia and began to launch more loud "mothers," scolding Adán.

"Look, cabrón, " he said. "You know what I don't like?"

"Of course not," Adán smiled.

"I don't like your going off and leaving this fine girl for a mierda of an idea that you are the only man responsible for fornicating that tigre all over the Sierra Madre. I came this way to tell you. Stay home with your wife and family now. Don't always be so jodido!"

Adán coughed and stared at his feet, deciding he would try to show El Gringo that he was taking him seriously. El Gringo was always serious.

"If you had been here the other night where you belonged, son of your tal mother, you would have killed that son of his tal mother," said El Gringo.

"Tell him, vieja, " said Lucrecia from the kitchen. "Scold him."

"Love your wife, Goddammit. Goddammit, Adán. Do you love this fine woman?"

"Yes. How could I not love her?"

"Then why do you spend all your time and manhood away from her on unappreciated adventure? Are you more in love with jaguars?"

"Lucrecia knows why I'm hunting the tigre. "

"Yes, I do," said Lucrecia. "Of course, I do. Oh, I do, Little Jesus. ¡Si, Chuy!"

Adán stifled his cough.

"So he can lose his health and catch pneumonia and die drunk on lechuguilla like all the rest of the Indians. So he can sleep in tombs and swallow the dust of decayed Indians."

Adán swallowed mezcal and looked at no one.

"We need our families, chingado!" persisted El Gringo. "You and I are broncos and we need to be guided and assisted by our nice families. We are also needed by our families."

"I poured a gallon of copalquin bark tea into him last night to keep his fever down and another of palomulato for his cough. He bathed us both in sweat all night," Lucrecia said, begrudging Adán her care while she had El Gringo for an ally.

"And you were drenched in your man's juices and sweats, I'm sure," El Gringo laughed. "You had to stay close to him in bed."

"Well, yes. He could have chilled." Lucrecia blushed. "Give him tepeguaje tea for his cough. I know what I'm talking about."

Adán wanted to cough very much. He decided he could cough as much as he wanted to. He coughed.

"Listen to that!" Lucrecia said. "How can my medicines help him if he won't rest? Why should I care about him coughing himself to death? I nurse him in my bed like a baby so he can get well enough to kill himself running Hgres, drinking lechuguilla, and sleeping with mummies."

Adán laughed.

"Look, Adán, pay attention to this good woman. I know these women. My wife is a sonofabitch about taking care of me. But I love every little piece of the great quantity of her ass!"

Adán laughed so hard he fell over backward in his chair and laughed on his back with his feet in the air.

El Gringo laughed in spite of himself. "Why laugh? Don't you love Lucrecia's ass?"

"Of course, fool," Adán laughed. "But Lucrecia's ass isn't in little pieces."

"Ay, how is it possible to support you idiots?" Lucrecia laughed.

"Anyway, jodido, " El Gringo said, grinning. "Your El Yoco was seen by Lico at El Manzanillal the day before yesterday and I knew you would want to know."

"Yes?" Adán said, controlling his laughter and straightening his chair. He took a drink of mezcal.

"Ay, what a friend you turned out to be with all your advice, Gringo," Lucrecia said. "I thought you wanted Adán to stay home with his family. Now he'll be lost again until he sneaks home drunk, sick, and tired. Why did you tell him?"

"Hah!" El Gringo snorted. "Lico caught the tigre dragging away a saddle mule that belonged to me."

"But Lico is always armed with that big .30 caliber," said Adán.

"He was armed, but don't forget, Lico is old."

"How old was he this time?"

"Too old. He's always too old for anything but breeding."

"How close did he get to the jaguar?"

"Fifty meters."

"Fifty meters. Did he miss him at fifty meters?"

"No. He said he was admiring him and before he knew it the animal was gone."

"¡Ah, qué cabrón!" said Lucrecia angrily. "He could have shot him and had the rest of his life to admire the hide."

20

Adán Martinillo and Mariposa watered at the spring by the cave of the javelina on Contreras mountain. They walked into the mouth of the cave. No animal had used the cave since Adán had slept there alone. His tracks in the soft deep dust were as undisturbed as they had been five minutes after he had made them. Adán had hoped to go directly to the cave and find sign of El Yoco. Now he could not find the mule or any remains of mules even though vultures wheeling above the cave proved a large carcass was nearby.

He climbed to a ledge and squatted and watched. This was as far as Mariposa could follow and the dog was whining with worry, afraid Adán would go on without him. Adán could see the tall trees in the canyon of El Manzanillal where Lico said he had been near El Yoco. Adán would have needed an entire day to climb from that canyon to this ledge. He watched the beaks of the vultures when they looked down. He looked for a spot on the cliff below him that could be in the center of the wheel of vultures. He decided to leave the dog and search the face of the cliff. He began to descend. When he had to face into the cliff to progress laterally, he found another trail of the ancient Indians. He followed it and found the mule stuffed into a shallow cave. He stepped over the carcass and sat on it. El Yoco had wanted to eat this one or he would not have carried it so far. The head was doubled under a shoulder. He could find no mark of claw or tooth. He saw the brand.

He recognized La Bomba. He marveled at the power of an animal who could drag a full-grown saddle mule up a trail chipped out of rock by miniature people and then stuff it into a place so small its feet were bunched together. He searched under the hair of the mule's throat, jaws, and head and finally found a deep, clean cavity where the poll knot should be between the ears. He hauled the head around by one long ear and saw that El Yoco had cleaned the mule's brains and eyes from the head. The bone was as clean as a dish. He wondered how often this animal had to kill if he chose to sup on only such select meats. "How fastidious a beast!" he muttered aloud. The jaguar had to kill other meat. He could not live long on the brains and eyes of a mule. Adán smiled to himself. He knew mules whose brains would starve a jaguar to death. He knew a few brainless mules who would starve a mouse. He got up and backed out of the cave. He started down the trail of the antiguos. He moved carefully. He did not have to watch for sign. He climbed around a corner on a place where the trail widened and came face to face with El Yoco on his way up the ledge. Adán had both hands on the face of the cliff and was not accustomed to meeting jaguars at a distance of six paces on ledges of cliffs. He turned to get his back to the cliff so he could unsling his rifle. El Yoco crouched steadily, his gaze calmly speculative, with only a slight glance backward to see if flight in that direction was possible if necessary.

Then, between Adán and El Yoco came the freckled, yipping, spinning Mariposa dog flying out of control to rescue Adán. Adán reached out to catch the dog. This gave room for El Yoco to continue on his way toward the cave. Adán caught the dog in one hand and waved his rifle hand to retain his balance. El Yoco passed quickly between Adán and the wall of the cliff and shouldered Adán off the mountain.

The man had noticed a scree slope below him; small fine shale shed into a pile by this mountain. Scree would give with his weight. He jumped an overhang below him so that he could fall clear to the scree. El Yoco's shove, the spring of his own legs, and the weight of rifle and dog all combined to make Adán's flight to the scree a nose dive. He pushed rifle and dog away from him. He had time to think how ignominious it was that the object of all his weeks of brave effort had shoved him out of the way without even a growl, more intent on his dinner than worried about the formidability of a man in huaraches with a crazy dog and a single-shot rifle. El Yoco certainly did not consider Adán important. El Yoco's offhanded putting aside of Adán Martinillo was ignominy enough, but Adán's finding himself in space with all the flight capability of a dying caterpillar took away all his self-esteem.

He skimmed into the scree parallel to the angle of the pile. The heels of his hands made contact first, his forearms next, then his chest, his face. His neck buckled. His ears rang when his forehead was struck like a gong and he thought they would never quiet down. When his momentum had finally stilled he was so comfortable and so glad his danger was past that he settled his carcass and lay with arms and legs to the four winds, his face toward hell, and laughed while Mariposa licked his ear. He laughed while he rejoined his arms and legs and his downhill head to the trunk of his moribund body, while he used more minutes to get his feet downhill so he could stand, while he stumbled in the scree, looking from beneath his swelling brows to find his rifle and his measly scattered extras. He laughed and refused to pursue El Yoco up the mountain. He decided to go on to the Contreras ranch and doctor himself. If he cured himself of his small hurts and his large ignominy he would someday, perhaps, go after El Yoco again. He sat on the scree. He reached into his morral and pulled out his skinny bottle of mezcal. The bottle had not been broken because his morral had been riding on his back when he landed in the scree. He thought, Like all drunks I saved my bottle and my carcass in the accident. He lifted the bottle in salute to the ledge before he drank from it.

"Health, El Yoco," he shouted. He thought, he could have killed me with the same energy he uses to wipe his ear, but he didn't. He should have killed me. The big lump over his eye was put there by my son. I am going to put a small lump of lead into his heart. He drank extravagantly and clumsily, wiped his mouth ineffectively, and sighed resignedly at his sloppiness and foolish voicings against mountains. He wondered if he was always going to be an extravagant, clumsy, ineffective, sloppy, foolish drunk.

21

Long after dark Adán came in sight of the lights of Contreras ranch. He saw them through oak and pine forest from a trail lined with brave and spiny agrarrobo that clawed at him to keep him awake. He was comforted by the white electric light and the sound of the gasoline-powered generator at work. He walked in and saw El Gringo bareheaded and holding a cup of coffee on his front porch. He shouted his greeting.

"Who?" shouted El Gringo, peering over his glasses at the darkness.

"Marti--pinchi--nillo!" Martinillo answered gruffly.

"Come in, then. I'm glad you're here. Your relative just rode in ahead of you."

"What relative?"

"Juan-pinchi-Vogel," laughed El Gringo.

Juan Vogel's bay horse was eating corn and salt by the gate to the patio. He was thin, limber, and spent. Martinillo walked through the gate. He closed it behind him with great effort, leaving the Mariposa dog murmuring small cries outside. "Let the Mariposa come in," said El Gringo. "He's the only human I like." Martinillo left the gate open. Mariposa was content to lie where he could watch Martinillo through a low window.

Martinillo followed El Gringo into a kitchen warmed by a cast-iron stove. Juan Vogel sat there with his back to the wall, taking up one whole side of the table. He turned his brown face toward Martinillo and said, "Who are you, son of a flogging?"

El Gringo turned to look at Martinillo's face. Martinillo grinned at him through his mask of scabs and cuts.

"I am Martinillo the great hunter," Martinillo said. "In case you really want to know."

"Which of all the possible strange unmotherings has befallen you, Adán?" asked El Gringo.

"I, the great hunter Martinillo stalked to within six paces of the monster El Yoco, but in a noble effort to save my great hunting dog, Mariposa, I allowed El Yoco to escape--The truth being, El Yoco pushed me out of his way and went on about his business with less regard for me than he has for a nit on the end of his nose. I must tell you, however, for a moment he was in grave danger from a great flying dog."

Juan Vogel and El Gringo looked into their friend's eyes and saw madness. They began to joke while they salved and doctored his wounds and gave him lechuguilla.

"The mule wasn't yours, Gringo," Martinillo said after the lechuguilla had relaxed him. "Lico was mistaken."

"What mule was it?"

"The good brown mule, La Bomba."

"My flatulent brown mule?" asked Juan Vogel. "Are you sure?"

"Sure? And didn't I raise the bitch?"

"Poor Bombita!" said Juan Vogel. "She's the reason I'm here. I was going to catch her and rest my horse. So, La Bomba fattened and rested here to make a meal for the devil."

"He has her canned and preserved in a cave. He ate her brains for an appetizer."

"I hope they make him swell until he explodes," Juan Vogel said. "That mule was certainly full of gas. She sure could throw farts. That's why I bought her, remember Gringo?"

"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 child 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.

Suddenly the colt heard an explosion and the stalk whipped and quivered to the ground. The colt ran away from a man who came toward him. The stalk of fur was the tail of an old mountain lion who had been trying to lure the colt close enough to catch him and eat him. Martinillo made sure his bullet had struck the spot where he had aimed it. He slit the lion's throat for good measure and went on hardly breaking stride, cutting for a different track. He saw the elegant colt run away to his other, an old jenny burro the mezcaleros used to carry the mezcal heads to their winery. The jenny was nicked and matted by the use of men. She showed an unwillingness even to help herself as she moved away with her prancing colt. Martinillo was unconcerned for the life of the lion. The lion's legal fare was deer. He had become blunt in tooth and smooth of claw and had discovered that livestock was easier to kill and burro colts tasted the best.

Martinillo found a broken anguría with El Yoco's track planted in the middle of it. An anguría is a container fashioned by hand from green limbs and used by animal packers of the Sierra. He recognized the work of the hand of Manuelito Espinoza in the anguría. He found the other anguría containing fruits of the uvalama. Then he found a burro of Don Panchito Flores Valenzuela had been driven into a gorge and savaged. The old servant had not been killed quickly or compassionately. He had died kicking until his muscles and tendons had been stilled one by one with almost surgical care. Martinillo then saw the tracks that showed El Yoco had chosen his first Christian to kill. The tracks belonged to Manuelito.

The old man had not run. He was too disorganized for flight. Any motor extravagance of his could as well carry him over a cliff or into El Yoco's maw as carry him to safety. He had probably scolded El Yoco as he watched him kill the burro, afraid of the power he watched yet confident of his own authority as a man. Manuelito probably had believed no animal could continue doing violence while a man scolded him. How surprised Manuelito must have been when El Yoco turned all his attention toward him. How grave must that moment have been when El Yoco approached Manuelito in spite of the scolding. He had gone toward the man slowly. Manuelito had struck at the animal with rocks and sticks and, finally, had kicked at him with the soles of his huaraches. El Yoco had an easy time with Manuelito. No blood spotted the ground. Manuelito had surrendered after El Yoco had taken him by the head and shaken him once.

Martinillo had no trouble reading El Yoco's story on the ground. El Yoco released Manuelito once to play with him. His tail whipped the ground with enjoyment as he teased Manuelito. Manuelito's crooked feet in his lopsided huaraches backed up the hill. El Yoco snatched the man again and Manuelito gave in with complete stiffening acquiescence even as a kitten stiffens when his mother takes his head in her mouth to carry him. El Yoco had taught him a lesson in obedience with the first shaking he gave him.

Martinillo found the corpse of Manuelito in the cave called La Burra. El Yoco had laid Manuelito over a slab of rock in the cave. His jaw marks were plain on the man's temples and cheekbones. Manuelito had died in the cave after El Yoco had shaken him and thrown him about searching for more of his life to play with. Manuelito had died of the game.

El Yoco had violated Manuelito so badly he resembled a ruined toy. Martinillo decided he was not going to cross Manuelito's hands on his chest or bring him down off the slab to rest. He was thinking it was too bad El Yoco had not eaten Manuelito, however unappetizing Manuelito was, to save Martinillo the task of carrying the corpse to the authorities. The only reason he was going to carry Manuelito away from the cave of La Burra was to make people believe in El Yoco. This would also bring great fame to Manuelito.

Martinillo built a fire to warm the cave. Martinillo did not believe Manuelito should be without a fire. Martinillo had been going days without a fire. A fire was the most he could do for Manuelito now. He searched Manuelito's pockets for tobacco. They yielded nothing but uvalama seeds, a poor fruit that year. Martinillo had the feeling Manuelito had delved often into his own pockets to find nothing but dirt that caught under his fingernails.

Martinillo had no meat, but he had mezcal. He watched the fire light the corpse in the dark cave. He remembered how much good company Manuelito had been, how much fun he had given Martinillo with his cravings for tobacco, mezcal, and coffee. Martinillo walked to the corpse and stood before the half-open eyes that were looking so far inward at something going away that they had dulled and would never be any good at seeing outward again. He poured mezcal on the dead lips. The mezcal dried quickly and only a few drops ran to the chin, only the normal amount Manuelito was accustomed to losing so he could wipe it with the palm of his hand, an extravagance of his. "¡Cochino!" Martinillo said. "Messy." He wiped Manuelito's chin for him. Manuelito toppled and Martinillo caught him by the hand. He noticed dead hair with dead skin in the hand, hair and skin of El Yoco. Martinillo examined the hair and smelled it. El Yoco was sick with some infection that made his hair die. His eye might be infected from the blow of Adancito's rock. He might be enduring a lot of pain. He might slow down. Martinillo slung his rifle and bule, shouldered Manuelito, and headed for Chinipas.

24

Don Tomas Pesqueira, father of Lucrecia and Juanita, stood on the porch of his house at Canelas and watched two horsemen approach on the trail from Jecopaco. One of the horsemen led an ox by a rope. The other drove him from behind. Don Tomas puffed on a cornhusk cigarette and recognized the men. He called to one of his grandsons and ordered him to open the corral gate by the house. The men coming were Chombe Servín, the killer, and Celestino Reyes, the cuckold.

Don Tomas had six sons, all grown and raising families. His wife had borne him seven daughters. Only Lucrecia and Juanita had lived past their first year. All of his sons lived at the Canelas ranch. Don Tomas was gracious to any man who acted civilly on the trail passing through his ranch. He disliked these two travelers. He considered it an insult to have to put up with both of them at the same time. He felt imposed upon to see Chombe riding on his ranch to avail himself of the Pesqueira hospitality as though Don Tomas was expected to welcome his murderer's face, his women to serve a murderer coffee.

Don Tomas moved as smoothly as a young man. He was strong and wiry. His sons were all stronger and taller than he, but none could walk farther, shoot quicker or straighter than he. He was capable of controlling any murderer by himself in his home. He could extend hospitality to any man because he was not a coward.

He sent a tiny granddaughter to bring his eldest son, Tomas, who was cattle inspector for the region. The murderer would undoubtedly require inspection papers for the ox he was driving.

Don Tomas took his stock knife, a clasp knife with a ten-inch blade two inches wide, from a holster at his belt. He cut a square of new leaf of cornhusk for a cigarette. He was licking it when Chombe Servín and Celestino rode into his yard and dismounted without greeting him or being asked to dismount.

Chombe was acting serious and important. He was much changed from the dull, subservient, starved boy Don Tomas had seen last in the store at Macarena. He was silently playing his role as murderer, matón, a certain distinction in a people who did a lot of murdering. He was romanticizing himself. He probably expected the region's troubadours to compose an epic corrido about his exploits as a killer.

Chombe was wearing new clothes, new boots. His new hat was two sizes too small for him. Why was it these young men thought a head two sizes smaller than the one they wore was attractive? During all their young bull lives they wore hats two sizes too small. Consequently, their brainpans did not grow. They remained pinheaded. Maybe this was the cause of the inclination of so many for murder. Chombe now wore a little mustache he was not born to wear, had not been destined to wear, because of his Indian blood. A man could count the fuzz over the lip if he wished to look at the face of Chombe. Don Tomas did not look at the face of Chombe. Celestino the cuckold was wearing a fawning smile.

Chombe stood beside his horse and slid his rifle in and out of the scabbard, assuring himself of his deadliness. Before he became a murderer he had often asked Don Tomas' advice about honorable paths he could follow to become a man. He never had failed to demean himself in some way in Don Tomas' eyes after he had been freely given the advice. Don Tomas likened Chombe to a chameleon. His colors changed with every mood and sound and color of his surroundings.

Chombe moved his pistol under his belt so that it rested at his belly. He stepped up under the portal to shake hands with Don Tomas without removing his hat. He looked at the homemade teguas on Don Tomas' feet and then at his own new factory boots. Don Tomas did not take the hand but swung a chair forward for Chombe's comfort. He swung it hard enough so that Chombe had to back away to catch it with both hands.

"Sit yourself," Don Tomas said. Chombe, swaggering stiffly, swung his leg over the seat so that he could rest his forearms over its back. He did not remove the hat which hurt his brainpan.

"Look what I've brought you," said Celestino fatuously. "Chombe the valiant."

"Come into the shade and rest," Don Tomas said to Celestino. "Poor man. You must be affected by the sun. You're not sick?"

Celestino's expression was that of a poor man who was constantly being bullied but made himself like it for reasons of his own, mostly cowardice.

"El Valiente is buying my red ox," Celestino hurried to answer "He is taking him to Chinipas to kill for a fiesta he's having for his girl friend. He's going to ask her to marry him."

"All very fine," Don Tomas said. He turned toward the women in the kitchen. "Bring coffee for these valiant travelers," he ordered, his expression unchanging. "Bring food. Romantic valiants on their way to fiestas require food."

"Many thanks, Don Tomas," said Celestino. "We will only require coffee."

The six sons of Don Tomas came to the table and gravely shook hands with Chombe and Celestino. They unsaddled the horses and carried the saddles to the shade of the porch. The children of Canelas did not appear. The women stayed out of sight. Tomas, the eldest son, got his book of inspection papers and filled out a permit for transit and a bill of sale for the ox. He took tax stamps from a shoe box and stamped the bill of sale.

The men of Canelas tied the ox to a snubbing post, took Celestino's branding iron, heated it and vented the ox on his side as he danced to the brand. The brand showed brown and smoking on his red hide. Celestino and Chombe saddled their horses. Chombe looked over the back of his horse and saw someone approaching the ranch. "Who is coming?" he demanded quietly, dangerously.

"Only the paludisma, the malaria, this time," said Neli, the son who worked for Juan Vogel, mocking Chombe. He walked to the patio gate and slid open the poles to admit the visitor, a young man on a tired mule. He wore a yellow helmet. His saddle blankets had slipped back under his saddle and were flapping and about to fall off the mule's rump, but he had not noticed them. He rode into the patio and lowered himself to the ground. Neli unsaddled the mule and gave the animal a bundle of tasol. The young man was a government worker sent to the region to inspect for the prevention of malaria mosquitos and other pests. He ignored Chombe and Celestino. He went straight to the portal.

"Are you sick, Ernesto?" Don Tomas asked, looking closely. "You are pale. Did you catch your own malaria?"

"I'm frightened," said Ernesto. "I don't mind admitting I've suffered a shock. A tigre, I imagine he's the same one they call El Yoco, harassed me all night."

Don Tomas placed a chair for the young man. "On the trail last evening I saw a herd of eight or ten of your cattle bunched together for protection," Ernesto said. "I saw the track of the tigre on the trail. I left the cattle and followed the track. The tigre was lying in the meadow of Sombrerito when I arrived there. I thought he was dead. He was lying on the ground with flies all over him. Then he raised his head and rolled it from side to side and looked at me. His head was misshapen, his body shrunken. My mule bolted to the edge of the meadow and stopped, hiding his head in a tree. When I tried to turn him away from the tree, he wrung his tail but would not move his feet. The tigre got up and began prowling around me. He untracked the mule and drove him to the center of the meadow. I got off the mule and threw rocks at the tigre. He slapped them to the ground with his hands. I built a fire and spent the night walking around the fire facing him as he moved around me. He made no sound. He smelled like a dead carcass. At sunup he went away and I was able to come on.

"Woman, bring a swallow of the strong for this boy," Don Tomas said. He moved restlessly to the kitchen and a woman handed him an enamel cup brimming with clear mezcal. The boy drank and looked vacantly at the ground. Chombe and Celestino mounted their horses and rode out toward the ox in the corral.

"Bueno, until later," Celestino said. "Thanks."

None of the Pesqueiras answered him. The killer and the cuckold untied the ox and led him across the meadows of Canelas and past children who had gone to play volleyball. Celestino watched them and waited for their greeting. They did not look away from their game to wave to him.

Don Tomas walked to the center of the patio and watched the enemies ride away. He pointed to the telephone on the wall and said to Neli, "Call the law in Chinipas. Tell them some sort of infected animal who thinks he's going to become a bridegroom is on the way to make fiestas with skinny oxen for someone's daughter. I'm sure the judicial will appreciate the announcement. Girl!" he called to his eldest granddaughter.

"Let's get some deer meat into this poor boy who serves our government under his yellow helmet. Bring him more of the strong. We must take care of him or he'll go back to Chihuahua thinking all of us in the Sierra are cheap and unfriendly. Tomas, get your brothers ready to pick up the track of that devil who frightened our government. Rifles, bules, lunches, coffee, and mezcal. All six of us are going to help my son-in-law, Martinillo, get that bully. We should have helped him when he first began the hunt. It is our fault an animal has come to bully a man. Bring your blankets. Tobacco. We are taking this track until we kill Adán's El Yoco. We're going to finish him so Adán can go home to my daughter and my Martinillo grandsons. This savage might find joy in killing and frightening boys and young mothers and the government, but from now on he is going to be in too big of a hurry to stop and frighten anyone."

Don Tomas had been gathering his own gear. He slung a leather morral across his chest. He picked up his German Mauser from behind the bedroom door and pushed eight cartridges into the looped belt tacked to the stock. He filled his bule with clear water from the olla.

"Vamonos, sons! My son-in-law is needed at Las Animas."

25

La Güera, Juanita Pesqueira, sat on her front step with Luz del Carmen enjoying the evening change of light and sound in Chinipas. She did not expect bright conversation from Luz del Carmen, but she and the girl enjoyed their days together without talk. They shared their observations with few words. Now the sun was setting and they were watching the last of it shining on the buttes of Chinipas. They were listening to boys pitching coins against a wall in an alley out of sight. Increasingly the voices of men in a cantina down the street rose with the setting sun. Juanita was accustomed to the voices of men in the cantina. They usually kept their voices down during the day as they found themselves drinking instead of working; but after sundown they talked loud because no one could blame them for not being at work and night hushed their consciences. The loud expoundings of drunken men had become so common to Juanita that she no longer heard them as she no longer paid attention to barking dogs or the songs of tomcats in the night. They seldom interrupted her enjoyment of evenings on her front stoop.

Now she saw a drunken man was about to interrupt the peace of her evening. The man had been walking about in front of the cantina for half an hour throwing back his head as he sang and drank beer and stared for long moments at Juanita and Luz del Carmen. The man was tall. Juanita did not know him. Luz del Carmen would not look at him, and when Juanita questioned her with a look about the man Luz del Carmen gave no response.

The man walked up in front of Juanita, weaving with drunkenness. Juanita held a cigarette. She did not like to smoke in the presence of men, but she was enjoying it too much to put it out because of a drunk. The man drank all his beer and examined the empty can. Luz del Carmen began to tremble. Juanita saw that he was feigning drunkenness. His weaving was too athletic, too exaggerated, to be real drunkenness. Juanita narrowed her eyes and looked the man full in the face.

The man grinned at her. "It's true," he said. "Isn't it true, Güera, that you are the only good-looking woman in this town? You are the only woman who makes a man's time worthwhile?"

"Excuse me. Are you speaking to me?" asked Juanita.

She could not see the man's face clearly under the big hat and ragged hair. The hat and hair reminded her of a scarecrow. The face was filthy. The clothes were too large. The cuffs of the trousers dragged the ground so that she could not see the feet.

"Pardon me, yes, you."

"I don't know you. Go away and scare the blackbirds."

"Pardon me. I thought I might be of service to you."

"No. I have no blackbirds or crows for you to scare."

"I just thought, maybe, later tonight. I know you are the only woman in this town who might be available. I could come back any time you say."

"For what?" said Juanita, focusing her eyes on the grinning face.

"For what? For any little service I could provide."

"Why me?"

"Everyone knows you are the only clean and beautiful woman here. All the rest of the available women have dirty, cracked feet. Just look at that mud hen beside you. You are a queen of a woman compared to all the rest."

"Take your cheap carcass away to act drunk somewhere else."

"Look? Listen? The fornicated Güera is calling me cheap. I have money. I can pay any price you might imagine it's worth."

"Fornicated was the whore of your mother who gave you birth," said Juanita in a quiet, even tone. "She was a whore to have anything to do with your father, whoever you are."

"Look at the pinche Güera--" The man raised the beer can as though he would strike Juanita with it.

Juanita attacked him. She took the hat and hair with one hand and poked the coal of her cigarette at an eye. She hooked the same eye with her thumb. The man whimpered and turned to get away and his hat and hair came off.

"Chombe!" screamed Luz del Carmen. She ran away to the cantina.

Juanita saw blood in the corner of Chombe's eye.

"You'll pay me for this. You'll find this expensive. I'll salt you down for the rest of your life," he said.

"I'm sorry," Juanita said sincerely.

Men were running out of the cantina and shouting. Chombe ran away.

26

Fat brown Felipe Lugo smiled from behind the bar of his pool hall and cantina in El Real de Santa Inez, Chinipas, Chihuahua. Four of his customers were at a table playing cards late at night. Felipe sometimes kept his cantina open as late as ten o'clock so travelers could come in for beer, a drink of his contraband mezcal, or a game of pool. Felipe was in pursuit of success. He was positive in his heart that someday he would be a millionaire, so he didn't mind serving his customers in any way he could at all hours. The riches he was to receive might come to him in the form of an inheritance from some wealthy but as yet unknown relative; the discovery inside the walls of his old home of a hidden treasure of gold coins; or even the winning of the high premium of the national lottery, though lottery tickets were not sold in Chinipas. He believed someone was going to make sure that all he dreamed came true as long as he kept a public place and watched carefully over his customers. This evening he had begun to talk about his dream and expound on his philosophies in order to bring his dream closer to reality. He believed if he waited at his work and held to his philosophies, a miracle of good luck would make him rich and successful.

Salvador Velderrain, a vaquero, was talking about his bad luck at cards. He said, "I could have played clubs, but I didn't think I could come out with them. Then you, Ignacio, played clubs and won. That is the way I play cards, so I can lose and someone else can win."

Felipe Lugo, beaming confidently from behind the bar announced, "In any phase of life's living a man misses great opportunities being overly careful. However, when action will result in mistake or failure, you should not take action. For example, only recently I was offered half-interest in a hotel in Rio Alamos if I would take over the administration and management of it, but I couldn't see how I could come out on it and I didn't take it."

El Puros Ojos was in the card game, having brought a packstring of beer from San Bernardo. "True," said El Puros Ojos. "We all have to judge carefully how we may be exploited when we begin a new enterprise. For example, just recently I was offered half-interest in the National Bank for counting money. I was to receive half of all the money I counted for the bank. Since I could only count to one hundred in an entire day I couldn't see how I could come out on the venture and I turned it down."

The quiet laughter of the card players did not ruin Felipe Lugo's optimism, but it made his high forehead turn hot and shine with perspiration. Then Martinillo poked the dusty buttocks of the corpse of Manuelito Espinoza into his cantina. Martinillo laid him carefully on the pool table. He straightened and looked around the room. Felipe Lugo walked to the table and looked down into the face of Manuelito Espinoza. Martinillo sat on a bench against the wall by the bar.

"You'd better call the law," he said. "Someone better ask what to do with Manuelito. I've carried him all the way from the cave of La Burra and I'm going to rest."

Salvador, the one who had erred in playing clubs, stood up, looked into the face of the corpse and left the cantina. El Puros Ojos did not move. He knew there were no lawmen in Chinipas. He had been passed by the mountain judicial Police on the trail that morning. They had been on their way to Avena. At their pace, if they came to Chinipas at all, they would arrive much later and they would go to the hotel. The Chinipas comisario was in Chihuahua doctoring his grippe. El Puros Ojos knew this because he had gone to the comandanciao to report his beer.

Felipe poured a glass of mezcal for Martinillo and gave it to him. He peeled two hard-boiled eggs, bathed them with red chile sauce, placed them on a napkin, and handed them to Martinillo. He did not look at him. None of the card players addressed him either. They were afraid to ask what had happened to Manuelito because they knew the answer would shame them. All of them, at least once, had ridiculed Martinillo for hunting the tigre. They knew he had not been off the track of the animal since he had made up his mind to kill him. They knew he must have found Manuelito on that track.

"I'll have supper brought to you, Adán," Felipe said.

"Ojos, please go and ask my wife to send a supper for this man." El Puros Ojos did not move. Another card player went after the food.

Martinillo drained the glass and handed it back to Felipe. He ate the two eggs without noticing them. Felipe watched him out of the corner of his eye and wondered how he had recognized the being before him as Adán Martinillo. Close examination of the man made him unrecognizable as Adán Martinillo. Finally Felipe, who had less shame than most men and whose business depended on his making conversation in his bar, cleared his throat and asked the question, "And, Adán--how did Espinozita die?"

Martinillo looked up, his gaze searching for and craving the mezcal he had been expecting. Felipe caught the look, read the craving, and poured another glassful. Martinillo took it and drank it down like water.

"Hombre, be careful," El Puros Ojos said. "Felipe cheats us by cutting it with water, but it isn't weak. At least tell us what happened to you before you kill yourself."

Martinillo handed the glass back to Felipe. "Give me another, please, Lugo," he said.

"Your supper is coming in a few moments," Felipe said.

"Fine, but I said give me another, jodido--please."

"Very well," Felipe said and poured the glass full again. "But please drink it slowly and tell us how Espinozita died."

"El Yoco abused him. El Yoco played with him until he broke him."

"Who is El Yoco, Adán?"

"El Yoco in the Mayo tongue, Téczevelo in the Guarijia, El Jaguar in Castilian, El Tigre in Mexican, The Devil in Catholic."

"¿Si?" Felipe said, unimpressed. "When and how?"

"Look at the marks he made on Manuelito. Feel the softness of the crushed skull. Move the head and find where the neck is broken. He was fondled to death."

The card players touched the corpse, moved the head, felt the neck. "He's stiff, but I believe Adán," El Puros Ojos said. Salvador came back into the cantina.

"He isn't here. He's in Chihuahua." Salvador said.

"Who?" Martinillo asked.

"Well, the law."

"I have to go. I have business. I'm wasting time here," Martinillo said.

A small boy came in carrying a bowl of fried blood mixed with onion and green peppers. The food was covered with a pile of steaming tortillas and smelled spicy and hot. Felipe opened a can of beer for Martinillo. He served his beer at room temperature. He had no refrigerator. He sold five mule loads a month, regularly. Martinillo sipped the beer and it graciously swelled his paunch so the food would find room to nourish him. He used the tortillas to pick up the food. He ate mechanically, from memory. He remembered his former method of eating. Now his jaws, unused to chewing soft food, came together without precision, as though they were no longer adequately calibrated. He drank the beer, ate half of the contents of the plate, and terminated his eating. He set the plate aside with the empty beer can and picked up the mezcal. Celestino and Chombe came into the room. They were drinking beer. Celestino carried a full case of beer under one arm. Chombe was now as clean and well dressed as he had been at Canelas.

"The Valiant One has arrived," Celestino shouted, waving his free arm. He staggered, acting drunker than he was, exaggerating his staggering so that it was more a swagger. He saw Martinillo and pretended not to notice him. He threw one arm over the shoulder of Chombe and handed him a beer with that hand. Chombe took it with the same feigned drunkenness. He put the can to Celestino's lips and poured beer on Celestino's jaws. Together they weaved about and almost fell. They swung themselves around the room and caught themselves to keep from falling. Celestino detached himself from Chombe, hurting from Chombe's grasp. Chombe could not give him beer without nearly drowning him with it, could not embrace him without manhandling him to frighten him. Celestino dropped the case of beer on the bar in front of Felipe.

"Here, my friend, Lugo, have one of my beers," he said and held a can under Felipe's nose. He hoped Felipe would accept his beer, be his friend, protect him from Chombe. Felipe did not move or look at him. To him, the cuckold was only trying to act a man. The cuckold thought a man who was drunk should stagger and give away beer.

"Not right now," Felipe said. "I had my supper only a little while ago and I'm still full."

"No? Well, tell me when you are ready for one. We have plenty and when this is gone we'll buy it all from you." Celestino looked around him to see if there was someone else in the room who might realize his distress and help him. He saw Martinillo and turned sharply away from him, colliding with the pool table on which Manuelito lay with arms bent, fingers clutching toward Celestino's face. Chombe was standing over the corpse. Celestino overcame his fear to see if Chombe was afraid.

"And this?" Celestino asked. Chombe did not answer. Celestino turned to the card players. "What is it?"

"Yes, what is it, what is it?" said El Puros Ojos. "Is it a corpse? Yes, a corpse it is, it is a corpse!" He did not look up, was not courteous to Celestino. Celestino needed a friend, or an enemy, any human reaction to help him get away from Chombe. He poured beer on Manuelito's face.

"Espinoza! Espinoza! Wake up," he said, giggling and looking for disapproval.

Chombe pulled Manuelito's toes. "Look," he said. He drew his knife and grinned at the men in the room as if to say, "Do I dare?" As if to say, "Don't you think we could have fun with a knife?"

Three townsmen of Chinipas walked in. They had been following Chombe and Celestino all day and drinking the beer he bought for them. Now they had supper under their belts, had heard about Manuelito, and had come to continue having their good time free-loading on the killer and the cuckold. The three were young, well fed, and husky. One was armed with a .45 automatic in a holster clipped inside his belt. More men began to crowd into the place behind them.

Felipe began to sell beer. Martinillo was not noticed. He sat in a trance in front of the bar. Celestino poured beer on Manuelito again, hoping Felipe would call the law. The law would certainly put a man in jail for pouring beer on a corpse.

"¡No, hambre!" Felipe said. "The beer sticks on the felt."

Celestino poured more beer on Manuelito, mumbling a blessing as though baptizing him.

"Hombre!" Felipe whined, protesting. He did not move from his place behind the bar. Celestino, resigning himself to being Chombe's chattel, watched with his usual fascination as Chombe stuck the point of his blade into the pad of Manuelito's toe. When the corpse showed no reaction, he pushed hard with the blade, biting his tongue while he watched for his blade to strike a live nerve. He pulled out the knife, looked for blood and with the laughter of the three townsmen encouraging him, stuck the knife into the arch of Manuelito's foot.

"¿Mira?" he said, acting surprised. "Will you look? The foot isn't ticklish." He plunged the blade again, expertly, cruelly.

More men came into the place to take seats to watch and be entertained. Chombe, with a large audience now, began to draw the sharp blade along the foot, skinning it. A huarache fell away and the three young townsmen giggled while one used the moment to reach for the case of beer and open cans for himself and his companions. Chombe wiped the huarache off the table. Martinillo looked down at the tire sole of the huarache worn thin to the threads by the crooked foot of Manuelito Espinoza.

"Leave him alone," Martinillo said quietly. He got up stiffly and left his place to go out of doors to relieve himself. Celestino whispered into Chombe's ear as Martinillo walked by. Martinillo heard him say Lucrecia's name. He thought about that name in a cuckold's mouth and a coward's ear while he was holding his penis and wetting the cobblestones of Chinipas in the starlit alley. He went back into the place.

"Celestino, keep your mouth off the name of my wife," he said into Celestino's gaping face. Chombe stepped back, threatening with the knife. "Chombe, keep your blade sheathed. If you don't, l'll make you both behave. Both at once, or one at a time, whichever way you would like it."

"No, Adán. We're just having fun," said Celestino. Martinillo walked back to his bench. Celestino looked around at the audience as though for confirmation that Martinillo was crazy. Martinillo sat down. He handed his empty glass up to Felipe for refilling. The attention of the room switched to Felipe to see what he would do with contraband mezcal with every man in town watching.

"Not now," Felipe said. "Not any more for you. You are drunk and I want no trouble in here."

Celestino grinned at Martinillo. "Give him more wine, Lugo, so he'll be too drunk to go home for a few more days. I haven't finished skinning all I have to skin at Las Animas."

"What?" said Martinillo, looking up. He had already forgotten about Celestino and Chombe. He was feverish.

Chombe held the blade up and twisted it, letting it shine for Martinillo. The three townsmen laughed at Martinillo and he did not notice the ridicule.

"Imagine how you could make a naked woman dance with that blade," Celestino said, grinning widely. "You should see how they jerk and buck when you have it in them at the point of a knife."

Now, more of the spectators in the silent pool hall were enjoying the theater of the cuckold, the killer, and the hunter and began to laugh unself-consciously at each motion and inference the killer made so that he would see them laugh and know they were his friends. They were completely intimidated by him. Chombe began to realize that this was a great moment of his life, a time when his society was accepting him as a special person. He was the one who killed and loved and drank as he pleased and the lesser endowed were taking pleasure watching him take what he wanted, do as he pleased. He let his knife shine for the room, holding it before him at arm's length, no longer playing drunk.

Celestino, watching his friend's command presence grow, saw his opportunity to pay Adán Martinillo for all the shame he had been made to feel when he had been chased from Las Animas by Lucrecia. He was not brave enough even to look at Martinillo when he spoke. He kept his eyes on Chombe and let Chombe stare at Martinillo. He showed his own knife, a small dagger made from a file with an eagle's head cast on the end of the handle.

"He threatened us," he said softly to Chombe. "We could kill him and have all these men as witnesses for self-defense."

One of the young townsmen drinking the beer heard him, looked indecisive a moment, then grinned and began to act drunk. Chombe stared arrogantly at Martinillo. Martinillo looked up at Felipe again.

"More mezcal, Felipe. I need it," he said. Felipe paid him no attention. He was also enjoying the theater in his place. His denying the mezcal gave him a part in the theater.

"First, to cut her tits. She has pretty tits to cut," Celestino said. Chombe's stare menaced Martinillo, Celestino thought. "Then hold the knife to her buttocks while one of us does her the service."

"And her marido? Her husband?" Chombe said to Martinillo.

"What marido?" asked Celestino. "I've been there five times lately and I never saw any marido. You ever notice those kids? They don't resemble each other and they'll never be Great Hunters."

Martinillo did not hear the conversation, was not paying attention to any sound in the room.

"What place are you talking about? Where do you have all your fun?" Chombe asked.

"Over in Sonora. Las Animas, Sonora."

"And the whore? What's the whore's name?"

"La Lucrecia."

"What?" Martinillo said, looking up. "Give me just a swallow, Felipe. I have to go."

Felipe, his forehead sweating with excitement, had never imagined he would have the good fortune to have the whole town present in his place for such a theater as this. Martinillo looked at his enemies then, curious all at once at the comments he had just heard about a place called Las Animas, a woman called Lucrecia. He lived at a place called Las Animas, was married to a woman called Lucrecia.

"Lucy, Lucy, Lucrecia," sang Celestino, He danced and swung his hips. "My knees get sore by your sides. My thighs stick fast to you."

"Lucrecia? What Lucrecia?" Martinillo asked. All his hunter's concentration came to bear on the staring Chombe and the silly Celestino, and he became conscious of all that had just been said about his wife and home.

"What Lucrecia?" mocked Celestino, rounding his lips as for the caricature of a kiss.

"Ahhhhhhh!" cried Martinillo, springing over the pool table and the corpse of Manuelito to get Celestino. Celestino was no ordinary coward. He was an accomplished coward, insulter, and cuckold, and he was fast. He had been ready to run when he had decided on the sound and nature of his first insult. He was running toward the back door with the first untoward movement of Martinillo. The room was long. Martinillo coasted up behind him effortlessly and when he was within reach of Celestino he stamped his feet behind him. With the sound of the stamping footsteps on his heels Celestino stalled at the door and instead of opening it, tried to climb it. He saw he had no chance of escape. The reason he was such a coward was that he could not stand moments like this and he did what he could do, he defecated down both trouser legs since he wore no underwear. Martinillo grasped him gently by the back of the neck and smiled, not breathing hard, speaking softly with no anger. "I wouldn't hurt you, poor little fellow," he said. "Don't be afraid."

Celestino found his voice. "Stop him! Get him off!" he shrieked.

Chombe straddled Martinillo's back and thrust his knife under Martinillo's ribs, causing Martinillo's own diaphragm to leap into a spasm and push all the breath from him. Martinillo did not feel the blade. The weapon was sharp, the length of the blade slipped in freely without striking bone. He thought, wonderingly, "How could I have lost my wind so soon?" He shrugged Chombe off and one of the townsmen caught him about the waist from behind. Celestino struck at Martinillo's back with the dagger. Martinillo dipped his shoulder and the knife grazed the length of his breast and buried its point in his sternum, missing the soft point over his heart by a fraction. Martinillo turned on Celestino as though the townsman had no hold on him and saw the knife. He took Celestino's wrist and shook the knife away. "Celestino, you idiot! Do you want to get into trouble? Knives are trouble/' Chombe took Martinillo's head under his arm and struck him. A heavy townsman ran into the struggle, knocking everyone down. Martinillo tried to get to his feet. Chombe was standing with his legs locked around Martinillo's head. He could not lift the boy with his neck. He was yoked on his hands and knees by the heavy thighs. He could not breathe. The spasm of his diaphragm was overpowering his lungs. The three townsmen piled on him.

They stretched him out on the floor. They stood on his arms. One sat on his legs. Chombe sat on his chest. Celestino walked around him and thrust his knife at Martinillo's heart, searching for Martinillo's spirit. The point struck a rib and bounced out of his hand. Celestino went after the knife but faltered, slipping in Martinillo's blood.

El Puros Olos hurried into the room with five armed mountain men. He pointed to the heap of struggling men, his finger pointing unluckily on Celestino.

"That's enough," the tallest mountain man said. "Let him up." The townsmen held on to Martinillo, bearing their weight on him with satisfaction, relishing every squirm he made, every breath that faltered. He realized if he fought more he would die. He would smother. He went away within himself and left them, willing his own unconsciousness. Celestino turned the knife, cutting edge up in his hand, knelt and stabbed again at Martinillo's heart. The knife bounced off the ribs under the armpit.

"I said let him up," said the mountain man again and swung his rifle by the barrel against Celestino's head, spilling him over the floor. Celestino's hand forgot the knife and it left him. The mountain man stepped forward again, warming to his chore, and swung the rifle at the heads of Chombe and the townsmen. He slipped on blood and missed the first swing, but the backswing struck a townsman who was standing on an arm of Martinillo's. He swung again and struck Chombe on the chest, breaking him off Martinillo, The townsmen left Martinillo.

"Help him," the mountain man said, and Salvador and El Puros Ojos helped Martinillo to his feet. The mountain man kicked Celestino's knife across the floor to a man on the bench. Martinillo sat on the bench. The mountain man opened Martinillo's shirt. Blood was running out of a shallow cut across the breast to the sternum. He pressed his handkerchief against the wound in the sternum. He called to a companion to hold the handkerchief. He motioned and another man went outside. He walked over to Celestino who was trying to get his feet under him. He looked down at Celestino. The man who had gone outside came back with Chombe's rifle. The mountain man waited until Celestino twisted his trunk around to get up. He took a pistol from Celestino's belt. He looked at the townsman who was armed with the .45. The townsman handed the pistol to him. Celestino was fully, sullenly conscious now. The mountain man helped him stand and sat him down, clearing a bench of spectators.

"Do you feel better, Chombe?" the mountain man asked, mistaking Celestino for Chombe. Celestino did not answer. He saw Chombe, bareheaded and barefooted, leave the place silently by the back door. Chombe's boots and hat were under the pool table. He resembled a teen-aged town boy running to stay clear of trouble. No one recognized him. Celestino hoped he was finally rid of him.

"So that you will be more disposed to answer my questions, I'll tell you who I am. I am Albino Montiel of the Judicial Police," said the mountain man. He opened a folded leather case and showed his credential to Celestino. "l have an order for your arrest. Now answer my questions."

Celestino's face was very white, sick, and afraid in the electric light of the cantina. He was not the murderer. He did not belong in a murderer's place. The mountain man made a gesture toward one of his companions. The companion took a pair of handcuffs from a morral by his side and handcuffed Celestino to the bench. Celestino stopped watching the door he had seen Chombe leave by. As long as Chombe kept going Celestino was free of him, no matter the punishment just men might deal him.

The mountain man held Chombe's rifle in front of Celestino's face. "Have you seen this rifle before?" he asked. Celestino did not answer.

"Do you know this carbine?" Montiel asked patiently.

"Yes."

"What weapon killed the boy at Avena?"

"I guess the carbine you have in your hand."

"How many shots?"

"One."

"You are a good shot?"

"Regular."

"Well, you are not even a regular shot. You shot that boy up through the hip. You couldn't have been shooting at his hip. But it was a good enough shot to kill a boy while he sang and good enough to procure for yourself twenty to twenty-five years in the penitentiary. Why did you shoot that boy?"

"I am not the one who killed him; nevertheless, I myself always found him gross."

"Immensely displeasing to you?"

"Yes. He was not killed without reason."

"I understand. Yours was a very good reason. And why did you knife this poor countryman just now? Did he displease you also?"

"In self-defense. He attacked me."

"Self-defense? You are Chombe Servín, are you not? This evening it was reported that you sequestered and starved the daughter of Bonifacio the vaquero. Did she also attack you? And where is the man, Bonifacio? Did you kill him in self-defense?"

Celestino looked at the back door, sighed, and did not answer.

"I'm sure we'll find good reasons for all your actions."

"Excuse me, maestro, " said El Puros Ojos.

"Speak," said Albino Montiel.

"This thing is not Chombe Servín."

"What?"

"I was going to say--" said Felipe Lugo.

"No," said El Puros Ojos. "This is only a poor cabrón named Celestino Reyes."

"Wasn't Servín just here?"

"Yes." Each man in the poolroom looked at his neighbor. El Puros Ojos looked around the room. "But he's not here now."

"I was going to say--" said Felipe Lugo.

"What were you going to say, Lugo?"

"He's not here, I don't think."

Albino Montiel gestured to his companions. They released one handcuff from the bench. Celestino almost smiled with relief, but then they handcuffed his other hand behind his back and led him out of the room.

Montiel looked to the bench for Adán Martinillo. The man was gone. His rifle and bule were in the corner by the bar. Montiel looked at Felipe Lugo. Felipe shrugged, opened his hands, cleared his throat. "He left. I didn't notice when. I think he was hurt."

Don Tomas Pesqueira and his sons walked in, all armed, all toughened by the trail. Don Tomas barely glanced at the corpse of Manuelito. Each of his sons stepped forward to look into the face, touch Manuelito, and bless himself. Don Tomas went directly to Felipe who was pouring himself a large glassful of mezcal.

"With your permission," Felipe said to Montiel. "I keep this for my own consumption in cases of emergency." He sipped at the glass and offered it to Don Tomas.

"Where is the Martinillo," Don Tomas asked Felipe.

"We tracked him here."

"He's gone, Don Tomas. I don't know where. Maybe he's hiding."

"What would he hide from?"

"This man is a Judicial policeman."

"You want my son?" Don Tomas asked Albino Montiel.

"Only to question him. I would like to know where this corpse comes from. I would like Martinillo to appear against the men who hurt him. His blood is all over the floor."

"He got the corpse out of the cave of La Burra. We've been tracking him. The man was killed by a jaguar. My son carried him on his back from that cave to this room."

"A jaguar?"

"A ravening jaguar killed Manuelito."

"Ah!" said Albino Montiel.

"Didn't he say where he was going? How was my son hurt?" Don Tomas was angry. "What a fool you are, Felipe. If he was hurt why did you let him go?"

"I didn't see him go. How could I? He's a specter. I fed him. I tried to make him comfortable. He doesn't have much sense. He's crazy, if you really want to know."

"From what? From manliness?"

"I think so, or from hunger."

"Let's go sons. We'll find him on the trail. He'll not crack until he kills El Yoco." Don Tomas and his sons left the place. They had been gone a few seconds. No one in the pool hall had moved. Neli Pesqueira came back into the cantina. He picked up the full glass of mezcal that had gone begging in front of Felipe.

"The stirrup," Neli said and drank all the mezcal. "Thank you." He hurried out. The audience in the theater of Chinipas laughed.

27

Juanita and Luz del Carmen came home late in the night from the comandancia where they had made accusing statements against Chombe Servín. They went into the house where they had to sleep and they were afraid. They had to walk through dark rooms to reach the first lamp. Juanita left Luz del Carmen and did the walking, she knew her own house better in the dark. She told herself she was not afraid of the dark nor of the devil himself in her own house.

She made herself look out the back window of her kitchen before she lit her lamp. She looked because she knew she would not be able to see outside after she lit the lamp. She had been brave enough to come this far in the dark, she could be brave enough to look and see if any devils threatened her through the back window. She saw the wide expanse of the horned devil's head looming in the window inches from her face. She fell back and knocked the lamp off the table, shattering it. She found a match to strike for light. It broke. She scrambled for another, slipped on kerosene and fell, cutting her hand and a knee on the glass of the lamp. Luz del Carmen came with another lamp to illumine the room. The tall red ox of Celestino's lowed and looked at them through the window, begging for a taco, unperturbed by the confusion he had caused. Luz del Carmen giggled and set the lamp down. She went to the bedroom to light another. Juanita angrily made the ox get away from the window. She bandaged herself with clean rags, worrying that her fence was so bad an ox could eat her flowers and sleep in her patio. She swept the glass of the broken lamp into her dustpan.

A screech from Luz del Carmen made her run to the bedroom. "A coralillo, " said Luz del Carmen pointing at a bright ribbon of flesh gliding away from a lighted corner. A coral snake disappeared under the bed.

"No. It can't be a coral snake," said Juanita.

"Ah, no?" I know these snakes and that's a coralilla, the most poisonous of snakes, poisonous of father and mother."

Juanita sighed. "Let's get him out, then," she said, moving the bed.

"There he goes. Kill him."

"No, he's done no harm. Poor thing. Pick him up with the dustpan."

"Hah! You pick him up."

"I'll pick him up. He's so small, what can he do?"

Juanita scooped him up, carried him quickly to the back door and threw him out with the glass in the dustpan.

"You should kill those snakes," said Luz del Carmen.

"I guess you should," said Juanita. "I would rather kill that ox."

A man laughed close by her door. He laughed so close, so proximate to her, she almost felt his breath. She slammed the door with all her might and was immediately sorry. She must be turning into a coward.

The man laughed again. "Open," he said, and both women recognized the voice of Chombe. "Kill him," he said shrilly, mimicking Luz del Carmen. He threw the snake back into the room through the transom.

"Play with snakes because you were born that way, Chombe, but leave us alone," Juanita shouted. "You better leave us alone. The Judicial is after you."

Chombe laughed and rapped softly on the door. Luz del Carmen killed the snake with the broomstick.

"Kill him, Luz del Carmen. You won't run out of snakes," Chombe said. "You have plenty in the house. I made sure you were well supplied. I left a whole nest in your rooms."

"Chombe, please!" screamed Luz del Carmen. Juanita embraced her and quieted her.

"This is what he wants," said Juanita. "To frighten us so we will lose control. Follow me. Stay close and be quiet." She walked through the house snuffing lamps and listening for Chombe. He was laughing softly and following them around the outside of house. He was always close, only a wall away, laughing.

"Didn't you see the ox I brought you as an offering, Güera?" he asked. "Give me your bed and I'll give you the ox."

"What do I want with two oxen?" said Juanita.

"Come out or I'll come in."

"Come in and I'll smash your head like Luz del Carmen smashed the coralilla. "

"Better still, let me in nicely and take me to bed. My own snake is gentle and warm and I'll chase away the poisonous snakes for you."

"I'll let you in if you'll fornicate a coralilla. I promise to stand on its head while you do."

Chombe laughed. "Nooooo. Ask Luz del Carmen. You don't have to let me in. I'll have you both before the night is over. Both in the dark."

Juanita unlocked and opened the quiet drawer of her mother's ancient hardwood dresser and picked out the old well-oiled .45 caliber single-shot pistol her uncle had left her. She motioned for Luz del Carmen to continue moving drawers and beds and doors. Covering herself with the noise, she kicked off her shoes and ran to another room to a heavy ladder that led to the attic. The ladder was sturdy and she climbed it without a sound. She sat still before the open attic window and controlled her breathing in the darkness. She could hear accordion music accompanied by thumps of a bass fiddle far, far away at a celebration of drunkards in a cantina. The whole town was drunk. He had to come this way if he was to enter this house.

Her windows were shuttered inside with iron-hinged hardwood and barred outside by iron that would refuse access to a charge of dynamite. Ten men could not open her heavy doors and windows with the force and strength of their bare hands. If Luz del Carmen could deceive Chombe into believing both women were below, he would soon come grinning through this open attic window. She wanted to face on her own ground the person who thought he was so expert at raping, ruining, and terrorizing women. She knew he would not delay. She knew his senses and his stealth were better than hers. Using the music and the sounds of Luz del Carmen to cover her again, she carefully cocked her pistol and let it rest between her hands on the floor.

The night was so dark, the movement so quick and silent, that the man was dangling his legs in the window before she realized it was Chombe. For a moment she was not sure the legs were not rope she thought she remembered she used as a hoist for the window. The man was a step into the attic before she realized he had surprised her. He became aware of her when she raised the pistol to fire. He grinned and raised his arms to fall on her, and she saw this in the flash of the charge of powder that launched the heavy ball into his heart. She saw his eyes turn white with the reflection of the heat of the flash. She saw the grin of Satan coming to take her to hell. She saw the many horns of hair thrust toward the ceiling. She saw the face immediately become the skull of a dead man. She saw the tail of blood pouring between his legs as he went over backward out the window.

She rose and descended the ladder with fine strength in her arms and legs as she searched her house for any more poisonous animals she might uncover.

28

Juanita was sitting on her back step in the morning sun after a group of tall men had taken away the body of the man she killed. She and Luz del Carmen had cleaned and sanded the blood as the blood of bulls is erased by sand in the bull ring. Juanita had bathed. She was sunning her legs while she sunned her hair to dry it. Her fair skin was tanned golden from mornings like this. The tan legs stretched before her under the shapeless dress were long and straight. Her skin was the transparent skin of the redhead. What a waste, she thought.

The people of Chinipas and all the Sierra called her La Quedada, the one who was left behind. She loved Martinillo and she had never wanted another man. She decided as she dried her hair that Martinillo was probably dead after last night. She had sent Luz del Carmen to her father's household in Canelas, hoping Martinillo would come to her house to heal; but since he had not come during the fuss over Chombe, he probably was not coming, Alone again, Juanita felt better off. Seven years ago, while she was in Chihuahua caring for an old uncle who refused to die she had learned Martinillo had married Lucrecia. She and the Martinillo had grown with the same dreams and hopes, and he had ended up taking her sister to Las Animas. Juanita had drunk a gallon of lechuguilla, and crazy drunk had cut all her hair off close to the skull with a butcher knife. She felt tragic only until after the hangover had passed. She did not blame Adán or her black-headed, blackeyed sister for mating. Lucrecia was more like Adán. She was a huntress. She was predatory. Juanita had never hunted. Lucrecia was young and in the need of fertilization when Juanita had been nearing middle age.

Juanita had raised her brothers and sister while Adán waited for her to finish her chores so she could marry him. When she had taken the foreign chore of caring for an uncle she hardly knew, he could only believe she loved taking care of others more than she did a Martinillo. Even so, he had waited ten months while she wrote him letters about the progress of her uncle and implied how good she was.

He had finally written to her that she might be earning her crown in heaven, but if she didn't come home to him she would wear it as a virgin as far as he was concerned. She had laughed at his rashness in writing such words to her, the most pure Juanita, more secure that he approved how good she was. Six weeks later he had stolen her sister away from a dance, had kept her at Las Animas for ten days, and had taken her back to Canelas to marry her.

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 hard 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. Her 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.

El Yoco scrambled with Mariposa and came directly for Adán. El Yoco had no other way off the mountain. Adán stood and looked at him with sympathy. Where was his terribly grave, level gaze? El Yoco's look was as desperate with pain as his own had been. El Yoco's fine spring had become a narrow, winding, wobbling lope. His head looked grotesque within the bony shoulders. His big feet came on so ponderously they pounded dust off the ground.

The instant Adán and El Yoco decided they would collide, Adán raised his rifle. He aimed, squeezed, and placed the ball a fraction below the bad eye of El Yoco. El Yoco knocked Adán down and died embracing an oak tree.

34

Great, oppressive thunderheads illumined by lightning imposed themselves upon the sky behind Adán Martinillo as he walked home with El Yoco over his shoulders. Mariposa, limping at his side, occasionally raised his nose to smell El Yoco's paws. Adán went first to the mauguechi, the place he had cleared and burned so he could plant his summer corn. He laid El Yoco in the center of the clearing. He piled brush on the fence where some animal had weakened it. He went on and stopped, standing high on the brink of a precipice over his home.

"Hoooooooooooaaaaaaaaaah!" he called. "Ooooooooooaaaaaaaaaah!" again with all his heart.

"Hooooooooooaaaaaaaaaah!" came a girl's answer from the house. Adán Martinillo walked down to his house with clouds full of water rumbling at his back.