Mexican Village

Chapter I. The Quarry

March, 1920

Rivers rise in flood and destroy,

Brooks water the land and sing.

—Mexican proverb

The Engine Swung Around the Sharp Curve between walls of packed yellow earth, travelled into open country long enough to free the rattling cars behind it, and then came to a jerking pause beside the tall wooden supports of the water tower.

A young man swung down from the last coach, his snapbrimmed felt hat pulled low over his eyes, the collar of his shabby tan raincoat standing up at the back. In one hand he held a heavy, battered suitcase that had seen hard wear in many countries. In the other was a cigarette caught between thumb and forefinger, the glowing tip protected by the cup of the narrow palm, an unconscious gesture, for there was no wind blowing.

He looked about him at the stretching fields hot under the clear yellow sun, bare of houses, with the line of mountains blue in the distance.

The conductor thrust his head through one of the open train windows and spoke jovially. Do not be alarmed, friend. Under the slope of the hill lies the town of Hidalgo. I, personally, assure you of this.

The train, no longer thirsty, shook itself, tottered, gained speed, fled forward to meet another curve and so disappear. Its movements revealed another line of mountains, etched in gray against the dark blue sky, more cactus-studded fields, and, by the water tower, an old man standing between two saddled horses. He was slender, with a dirty blue shirt and gray trousers belted with rope. His broad-brimmed straw hat had a ragged edge, and a bushy gray mustache neatly bisected his brown face.

The stranger in the raincoat walked up to him. Are you from the quarry? he asked pleasantly in a deep, hard voice that clipped the words like scissors.

As you say, the old man answered politely, but the black eyes were investigating the stranger without friendliness. "The letter that came yesterday by train, and it was read to me by Don Nacho, the alcalde, himself, said that you were a Yanqui with a most unpronounceable name. And yet you speak Spanish. I do not understand this. Pepe Gonzales, without doubt a boy of little worth, but with two years’ schooling in Texas, taught me to say, ‘Follow me, please.’ It now appears that the lesson was of no necessity."

The stranger laughed, flicked his cigarette to the ground, stepped on it with the toe of his worn black shoe, grinding it to powder in the sand.

It would also appear, continued the old man tranquilly, that you were raised in the country, knowing well the danger of fire. That is a good thing.

One learns.

Yes. It is also possible that your grace knows how to mount a horse?

That also. Not so well, doubtless, as yourself, but that, too, can be learned. What does one do with the valise?

The old man took the bag from him and placed it between the struts of the water tower. Here it will be safe. You have papers in it?

The stranger’s mouth twitched in annoyance at this personal question. He answered stiffly, No. My papers are in my pocket.

That is good. Papers are better kept in safety. To me all papers are mysterious things, for I cannot read them, but my daughter Candelaria can read; she can also write. It is not good for a child to know more than the parent. He jerked the reins he held in his right hand. The black horse is for you. It is one of the Castillo blacks, and the foreman of the Rancho Santo Tomás, may the good God take pity on his stupidity for he is in all things stupid save in the knowledge of horses, has assured me that it is of a complete gentleness. You understand, he added anxiously that the letter did not state that you were learned in the matter of horses.

I understand. The young man swung easily into the saddle, allowing his body to settle against its hardness, resting his arm across the broad pommel while the old man adjusted the stirrups.

"You are not so tall as we expected. Pepe Gonzales, who is truly a fool but has had two years’ schooling in Austin, Texas, assured me that all Yanquis are tall, even as tall as Joaquín Castillo, may the saints watch over his soul in Paradise."

The stranger allowed the old man’s chatter to flow over him like water. He reached up with a sudden gesture and pulled off his hat so that the soft, scented air could stir against his long square-chinned face. He thought, One year of this. Is it worth it for twelve God-forsaken months?

The old man had mounted the sorrel horse and was watching him, patiently waiting for the signal to move forward. But the stranger did not give it. He was looking up and down the narrow, mountain-walled valley, seeing the yellow sand broken by gray-green cactus, each leaf flaunting its crown of purple fruit, the small flowering thorn bushes covered with tiny yellow blossoms that distilled a too-sweet fragrance, and the tall yuca palms bent under the weight of long, purple-tipped white blossoms. Through this desolation ran the silver tracks, reflecting the sun in angry stabs of light, and curving indolently around a cement platform, which had originally been walled with red brick but was now a blackened ruin, obviously once gutted by fire. He pointed toward it.

What was that?

The railroad station, and a fine building it was, presented to Hidalgo by that great good man Don Saturnino Castillo. But who is there to give buildings now that he is gone in exile from the valley? The Great Revolution was a grand thing. Don Nacho, who is alcalde, says so. Also Don Rosalío and the little Doctor, and even the priest, say so. They are all very wise. But me, I stayed safe from the battles in the hills, and now that the fighting is two years done, I say to them, ‘Of what good is the Great Revolution save to hang people and to burn buildings? If it was so fine, why do they not bring people back to life and give us new buildings?’ They answer me with pretty words that mean nothing. Your grace is ready?

The stranger nodded and let the reins go lax against the silky arched neck of the black horse. With the old man in the lead, they trotted through the fields and found a trail that led them through still more fields to the line of eastern mountains. Then they came into a cañon, and the trail mounted upwards into air that grew sharper and colder. The vegetation changed, the cactus and flowering thorn disappeared, but the yuca remained, and lichens curved their feathery gray softness over the massive rocks. At last they reached a high mesa that hung out in space, the mountain supporting it like a placid woman carrying a tray.

In front of them was a tin-roofed wooden shack, the unpainted door fastened with a heavy chain and padlock. The old man found a key after much searching in his pockets, and with many requests for aid to various saints opened the lock and flung the door wide. This, he said proudly, is the office. Here much work can be done with papers.

But the stranger was paying him no attention. He had strolled to the mesa edge and was staring across the great cut in space that was the valley. The old man came to his shoulder and pointed with one gray-dirt hand toward the northeast. There lies Monterrey. You can see the smoke from the smelters. It is a very great city. Don Nacho, who is the alcalde and should know, says it is the third largest in all the Republic. This I do not believe. Monterrey is very great. I believe it is the largest. No city could be larger. That is an impossibility. Ay, the cloud has moved. That is a good omen. The cloud wants you to see Saddle Mountain—the mountain of Monterrey. Do you not consider it beautiful?

The young man nodded, looking at the distant purple smudge of rock with the double peak that characterized it. For a moment he was a little boy again, and a woman’s voice was recounting softly in Spanish, "So the great god of winds, Hurikán, transformed his horse into a mountain to guard his favorite valley. He smoothed down the trembling limbs. The tail he smoothed down, the fine arching neck and the proud head. But in his haste he forgot the saddle … The stranger moved his shoulders under the shabby raincoat. Very beautiful," he agreed politely.

And there, the old veined hand swept in a wide half circle to the southwest, is the Peak of the Prow. Like a ship it sails the air, not so?

As you say. And the town at its base, that is Hidalgo?

No, señor, that is Mina. My daughter Candelaria, who has had, you understand, a certain schooling, says that it was named for a hero of the Revolution of 1810, one Ignacio Mina. This I do not know for truth, but only as she says. We have five towns in the Sabinas. It is a very rich valley. And there they are spread out before you.

Like toys, thought the young man. Like toys a giant has thrown down and forgotten.

The old man was saying, Close to Saddle Mountain is Topo Grande. There is no need for you to remember the name. A collection of mud huts, a small thing of no importance. But the next town, the one with many houses and streets, that is El Carmen. The people there raise cows and sell the milk in Monterrey. Don Nacho says that many people there prefer the milk of cows to the milk of the she-goats, but this is a matter of great amazement, and I do not know it of my own knowledge.

The stranger nodded to the next town. That one looks like a seashell, one street spiraled around to a center.

A curious thing, agreed the old man. My daughter Candelaria says that it is named for another hero of 1810 one Abasolo. A hero he may have been, but the name is stupid: the lonely bean! For the first time the old man laughed, his face crinkling with mirth, like worn brown leather tortured into creases.

Another town stretched out far below them. It was oblongshaped, with a church thrusting its belfry up from the center. The buildings were of all colors, and standing aloof was a single great house, the walls white, the roof of red tiles. This house seemed to rise out of a sea of glossy green trees, and beyond it were the sheer cliffs on which the town was built, swung out over a river that twisted through the entire length of the valley like a lazily curving shiny blue serpent. Across the river was a checkerboard of green and yellow, which the old man said were farms, and farther still was the wall of western mountains, small buildings tucked like colored dots into the folding flanks.

Looking at all this, the stranger raised his head slightly, his hazel eyes under the triangular brows filled with an almost passionate sadness. But the mouth, with the sharply cut corners jutting upwards, believed the eyes, as though the body wanted to laugh but the spirit refused the laughter. So that’s the hole I have to live in for a year, he said in English.

The old man grinned again, finding the incomprehensible sounds amusing. "If your grace will go into the office I can show you many papers. When the last jefe went away, he said to me, ‘Anselmo’—for your grace understands that is my name, Anselmo Carvajal, your servant. He carefully wiped his palm on his trouser leg and extended it. When the stranger shook it without comment the old man seemed disappointed, as though he had expected words which had not been said. After a moment he continued, The jefe said, ‘Soon this Revolution will be over, and if I do not come back, another jefe will come, and he will want the papers; so guard them well.’ That was in 1913. For seven years I have guarded the papers, and they are all in the office."

That is a fine thing, said the young man. I will now go and admire the papers.

Don Anselmo pattered after him into the shack. "Seven years is a long time. To God, of course, it is not even a moment, but to me, who am old, it is a long time. This office is even as the other jefe left it. He was a good jefe, not a Yanqui like your grace, but an Italian. He stayed here two years. He had a fine house in Hidalgo but he would not live in it. He slept on the office floor, sometimes alone but generally with one of the cave women. My woman was too old for him, and my daughter Candelaria, too young. She is, you understand, the child of my age. But many of the cave women rolled the eye at him, and then he would sleep with them. It was strange, for there were never any children. He had not in him the richness of seed. You are perhaps different, señor?"

The question was so politely put that it caught the stranger off guard. He was hardly listening to the interminable chatter while he surveyed the battered oak desk, a gaudy calendar showing a harshly colored picture of the cement plant in Monterrey, and the date, 1913, the scarred wooden filing cabinet, and the empty liquor bottles powdered with dust and linked together with strong cables of spider webs.

How the hell should I know, he muttered with a curious sense of embarrassment.

Precisely, señor. But then you are still young. You are perhaps twenty-four?

The stranger’s narrow face betrayed no hint of his resentment at this second invasion of his privacy. Twenty-six, he said curtly. Now that we have seen the office, where is the quarry?

But the papers, señor—all the beautiful papers in the cabinet. You do not wish to see the papers?

To humor the old man, he pulled out a drawer of the filing case. For a moment his lips slid into a long sideways smile. The drawer was filled with French magazines devoted to displaying the beauty of nude women. This Italian—what became of him?

"It was a sad thing. The morning he chose to leave the safety of the mountains was the same morning that El Rubio captured Hidalgo and started to hang people. That blond one was very angry at not finding Don Saturnino Castillo. He would say, ‘Where is Don Saturnino?’ and if a man could not answer him, zas! he was hanged. Lucky for Hidalgo, all the good men were away fighting. This Rubio caught the Italian, and because he could not answer the question—for who was the Italian to know the secrets of such a great one as Don Saturnino—the Rubio hanged him. I personally went down and protested, but the Rubio paid me no more mind than if I had been the husband of an actress. It was a very sad thing."

The stranger shut the drawer with a quick gesture of finality. And the quarry?

If your grace will follow me. It is around the slope of the mountain.

Once more in the clean open air, the young man took several deep breaths. I can’t work in that place, he thought. I’ve got to change it. It’s too small and it smells of filth. A year of this. Good God, a whole year!

He followed Don Anselmo around the curved slope, and then paused in speechless astonishment. The quarry was a deep, ugly wound in the mountain side, but above it, small ledges for walking having been carefully retained, was row after row of cave openings, so that the towering wall had a cynical resemblance to a New York apartment house sheered through the center.

People were wandering in and out of the caves, their quiet Indian poise ignoring the danger of the chasm below them, their laughter and high, shrill voices echoing in a constant flow of sound from the mountain sides. Children playing on the ledges were stepped over or pushed aside. Some of the men were squatting on their heels near a cave opening; others were stretched out at full length, their straw hats tilted over their faces, their bodies soaking up the welcome warmth of the sunlight. All of the women were working, some kneeling to pound corn into a thick white mash on porous gray-black stone, others weaving at ancient hand looms. A few were climbing the ledge, buckets of water balanced on their glossy black heads.

This—you live in these caves? the young man asked slowly after the scene had passed from his eyes into his mind.

"But yes, señor. The caves are very healthy. The other jefes wanted to build houses for us of the quarry rock, but it would not be the same. In the caves the rock still lives and gives us life. We do not sicken here as they do in the villages. Here we live to be very old, or we die from the clean stab of a knife. The living rock is very powerful."

The stranger cursed under his breath in English. Two of the children had seen him, and their shrill cries and pointing hands drew the attention of the people. They all looked at him with the blank eyes of the Indian, expecting nothing, giving nothing. He felt the blankness so strongly that he turned away, feeling as he had always felt, an outsider, a person to be tolerated but not accepted.

During the war in France, he thought, it had been different. Under the guns there are no strangers and yet there are no friends. Under the guns a man feels completely alone, completely shut off from all other men. But each man in his loneliness receives the comradeship of loneliness from those about him, so that he does not feel lost in a great void. But away from the guns and war, the people surrounding him withdrew into their private friendships, leaving him isolated, with only one friend to care for him.

When he was small he had accepted this loneliness as a part of his heritage, but later in Europe he had felt the lack to be a part of himself, and so he had come to Mexico, hoping that the nostalgia of the blood might be satisfied. Money being a necessity of living, he had posted a notice in the Foreign Club asking for a job, explaining that he was an expert with dynamite. Four years of war with the Engineers had taught him the uses of dynamite better than any school. Several offers had been made to him to work in the silver mines of Pachuca, but this northern cement quarry had attracted his fancy. He did not want the picturesque softness of the South. The blood that was in him demanded the serene austerity of the northern mountains, and although he had never seen Saddle Mountain until this morning, he could have described it minutely from stories told him in his childhood.

The blank Indian reception cut into him, for he had expected from these people the same easy response that the old man had given him, but even as he turned away he saw Don Anselmo’s dark obsidian eyes hidden in the shadow of the hat brim, and he knew that the chattering tongue was only a result of politeness to a new jefe, and not an acceptance of him as a person.

He said quietly, I think it is better to go into the town. I want a bath and some sleep. There was no pullman on the train, and I had to sit up all night.

As your grace wishes.

They retraced their steps to the horses. As he started to mount the patiently waiting animal he remembered that he had left his hat in the office; so he turned and went into the shack again. The open door had freshened the dead air, but the narrow, dark room with the one small window oppressed him like a prison. He went to the window and flung it open with a savage gesture, his eyes seeing but not quickly reacting to the sight of the girl standing in a small flower bed. The soft wind tossed her blue skirt around her bare ankles. The plain white blouse was cut low and from it rose the slender column of her throat. The oval face, with arched brows and large black eyes, was proudly set. A closely woven dark-red shawl flecked with green was draped over her black hair, and in her arms was a large sheaf of pink dahlias. She looked at him without shyness and yet without boldness, in a serene confidence that he found her beautiful. Then she silently turned and moved around a corner of the shack out of his line of vision. He picked up his hat, pulled it down on his forehead, and went outside. The girl was standing by the old man, who said proudly, This is my daughter Candelaria.

She extended her hand, murmuring, Candelaria Carvajal, your servant, señor.

He smiled at her, wondering why, like the old man, she also seemed disappointed when he made no response. Then he was in the saddle. They left her standing at the edge of the mesa staring after them.

Your daughter is very beautiful.’

Don Anselmo shrugged. Many men have found her so. Even the worthless Pepe Gonzalez has climbed the mountain side to see her. But he says, can you imagine, that the yellow-haired María—that nameless wench from the River Road—is even more beautiful. I have seen this María. She is all yellow like a grain of corn and lacks the full ripe blood. That Pepe Gonzalez is a fool.

A clever warning, the young man thought with some amusement. Not to admire the daughter is to be a fool. But to admire her too much, what then? Probably the edge of a knife. Other subjects are safer with this old man. He bent forward and petted the great black’s arching neck.

This is indeed a beautiful horse. Your sorrel is not so large, but it seems also a fine animal.

Indeed, señor, the sorrel is of all horses the best. If one says to you, ‘This morning I saw a horse flying through the air,’ ask him the color, and if he answers ‘sorrel,’ believe him.

And the black horse?

If someone says to you that he saw a horse leap from a precipice without hurt, ask him the color, and if he says, ‘black,’ believe him, for the black is the most energetic, the brown the most rapid, the piebald the gentlest, but the sorrel is the king of all.

The young man’s mouth twisted into his slow sideways smile. His grandmother’s voice sounded faintly, as though he were hearing her through water. "Always he rode a white horse. They forgot his name, but the horse they remembered. He said, You have no words for the white horse?"

Blessed Heaven! Don Anselmo gasped. He hastily crossed himself and glanced fearfully about him. "In these mountains it is not good to mention the Caballo Blanco, for the witches, in their laughter, might fetch his spirit before you.’"

But surely a white horse is not the property of witches.

Ay, you mean a horse that is white. I thought you meant …

Yes? What did you think?

"When I was small my father told me many stories, and they were true, for my father spoke the words. But there was once a man of my people the Huachichil, who rode through all these mountains, and many times he went into Monterrey, for he was without fear. His horse was white, and from the horse came the name El Caballo Blanco. He stole much gold and silver and many jewels, and he buried his treasure in the hills, and he guards this treasure very fiercely, so that all who try to find it go mad from seeing him ride toward them on his white horse."

But he is dead?

Executed with bullets before I was born, and I am very old.

How old are you?

I was born before the plague of locusts came.

"And when did the plague come?’

Why, after I was born, señor. That is Hidalgo in front of us.

The trail opened into a crooked, dusty road, lined on one side by lime-washed varicolored houses of mud brick, and on the other by a cactus-enclosed pasture in which sat various little wooden shacks thatched with palm leaf. The stranger drew his raincoat collar closer about his face and pulled the hat lower on his nose, as though he shrank from seeing the poverty-stricken hovels. Dogs barked in mock fierceness at his horse’s legs, and children peered at him through the cactus fence, but the man did not see their oriental faces as clearly as he saw the quick image in his mind of another shack and other children playing on the dirt floor, and a woman sobbing on a broken, white-painted iron bedstead.

Is this all the town? he asked harshly between clenched teeth. From the mountain top it looked as though there were many houses and a church.

"So there are, señor. We call this the Gallineros in laughter that the poor should shut themselves off with cactus like a chicken coop. Let us turn here to the right. We are now on the Avenue of Illustrious Men."

The narrow street broadened after a block, and the stranger saw a square plaza, shaded with orange and lime trees, and a round bandstand in the center. Around the plaza ran a wide sidewalk dotted at intervals with massive cement benches. Beyond it reared the blue tower of a pink church. They turned into another street, passed the barber shop with its striped pole, a long green building with the word Jail written over the entrance arch, and finally stopped before a blue-painted wall, with an iron-barred window and a hand-carved door, behind which sat the dignity of the mayor of Hidalgo.

Don Anselmo led the way through a narrow hall and into a small whitewashed office, which seemed filled to overflowing not by the desk but by the large-stomached man behind it. He sat very still, his black Stetson on his head, his upper chin resting on the soft fullness of the lower one so that he seemed to have a small face perpetually resting on a cushion of fat.

Don Anselmo went to the desk and carefully removed his straw hat, to hold it tight against him with both hands. "I give you good day, Don Nacho. The Yanqui is here."

The mayor’s small eyes, cold as black glass beads, turned toward the stranger standing in the doorway. He saw a man of about five foot ten, with a slender body that could never grow stout. The straight black hair grew back at the temples, and was brushed neatly away from a side part. There were three wrinkle lines in the broad forehead, and the face was long, with well-set ears. The man was clean shaven, with no hint of beard under the skin as is common to most dark men. The wind- and sun-burned face was brown, with an undertone of red in it, and the eyes had green flecks in their hazel depths. Don Nacho’s careful scrutiny did not miss the narrow, supple hands nor the shabby clothes. His penetrating glance returned to the sensitive mouth with the deep cleft in the center, the full lower lip, and the laughter-loving corners, then travelled upwards again to the somber eyes that were as unreadable as a forgotten language.

The quarry foreman spoke again, as though placidly showing off the good points of a horse. He possesses Spanish. Some of the words are strange, and the accent is unfamiliar, but he speaks the language. I personally have heard him.

Don Nacho put his palms flat on the desk and pushed his large body upright. He held out his hand and spoke in formal tones. Ignacio Villareal, at your orders.

As the young man moved forward to clasp the hand a vague wisp of memory returned to him in his grandmother’s voice, "When meeting strangers it is polite to speak your name. He said self-consciously, Bob Webster," and for the first time the name which he knew was rightfully his sounded strange and wrong to him.

The old quarry foreman sucked in his breath; then the tobacco-stained gray mustache rolled back in a grin from the jagged teeth. He learns quickly. This morning he knew not the politeness.

So, Don Nacho pursed his lips. I welcome you to Hidalgo, señor Don Bobwebster. You are doubtless tired and wish to see your house. He took a large key from a nail and opened a side door into another street. In the block across the way, its side to them, was a narrow house. A young man with a flat Indian face lounged against the wall. His stocky body was clothed in a pink shirt, grease-stained gray trousers, and leather-thonged sandals. A straw hat with a curling brim was balanced on the back of his head. He was chewing on a toothpick, and he examined Bob Webster with frank interest while speaking to Don Nacho.

Don Alonso wants an orchestra platform in the proposed Casino large enough to hold seven men.

Did he ask the building committee?

Yes. They said it was a useless expense, but an orchestra platform would be a fine thing, and I would not charge much for it.

You would charge as much as you think they would pay you, Porfirio. You are without shame.

The young man laughed and spat out the toothpick as they left him and went around the corner.

That Porfirio, sighed the quarry foreman. What he would not do to gain a peso.

I like him, said Don Nacho, and the rebuke shut the quarry foreman’s half-opened mouth.

The mayor struggled to unfasten the door of the small house. It is not large, perhaps, but the walls are good adobe, and there are five rooms.

Bob Webster looked without comment at the entrance hall, with its dead rubber plant and dusty wicker settee. Fresh air came to them from the patio, which had a cement floor save for three dirt circles where two orange trees and a pomegranate bush were planted. Somehow they had survived seven years of neglect.

Don Nacho showed off the rest of the house with an air of quiet pride. The late Italian had obviously liked wicker furniture. The narrow parlor was filled with it, and the chairs in the dining room were also wicker, although the table was a cheap imitation of American mission style. The kitchen lacked both stove and sink, but there was a very large icebox.

Every Monday and Thursday ice comes by train from the brewery in Monterrey, said Don Anselmo. Bob Webster lifted the box lid, and four dust-shrouded beer bottles brought a sudden pathetic image of the hanged Italian. He gently closed the lid and followed his guides into the patio so that they could show him the two rooms on the opposite side of the house. The one in front was a bedroom, with a rickety washstand, an iron cot with a torn corn-husk mattress, and a pole stretched across a corner, from which dangled on rusty hangers two suits of loudly checked tweed. The three men looked at the suits, each with the uncomfortable feeling that he had invaded the privacy of the dead.

A knock on the front door came as a relief. They walked quickly into the patio, and Don Nacho bellowed, Enter! Two young men came in, the shorter with a head composed of circles, the round face with round eyes and round stubby nose giving him a cherubic air; the taller, handsome in a dark flashing manner, the narrow line of his black mustache unable to hide his mischievous mouth. He wore a neat blue suit with a bandana knotted around his neck in place of a tie. His hat was a worn gray felt.

He came forward with his hand outstretched, his black eyes dancing with friendly laughter. Pepe Gonzalez, your servant, he said formally in Spanish, and then in surprisingly good English, Now you say your name. It’s an old Spanish custom.

He speaks Spanish like an honest christian, the quarry foreman interrupted sharply. He looked at the shorter young man, who was standing in the hall arch clutching Bob’s valise. His denim trousers and faded blue shirt, though of poor quality, were neat and clean. He wore thonged sandals on his bare feet, and a broad-brimmed straw hat like the foreman’s.

Andrés Treviño, he said in an agony of shyness, and quickly put down the suitcase. His brown eyes turned pleadingly to Don Nacho. "We found it beneath the water tower. Pepe said it belonged to the Yanqui, and that we should bring it to this house."

Thank you, Bob mumbled, not certain whether he was supposed to tip the boy. Pepe Gonzalez winked at him.

It is a fine thing that you can speak Spanish, for now there is no difficulty in making you a member of the Casino soon to be built behind this house. The dues are six pesos a year.

Five, hissed Andrés Treviño.

Porfirio said to ask for six. We need spittoons for the bar.

Five, said Don Nacho firmly. He turned his head toward Bob. That Porfirio, the carver of wood, watch out for him. If he can get a peso from you for nothing, he will do it.

Porfirio is a good soul, protested the two young men in one voice. With work he is generous, and with the spirit.

But a peso is closer to his hand than the lines of his palm, snorted the mayor. Pay them the five pesos so that they can leave us in peace.

Bob, who had no desire to be a member of the Casino or any other social organization in this Mexican town, but was afraid to say so for fear of giving offense, opened his overcoat and took out his worn leather wallet. From the coin compartment he extracted a ten-peso gold piece, and its shining beauty held everyone’s attention for a long moment. Pepe looked at it with amusement, Andrés with longing, the quarry foreman with awe, Don Nacho with objective interest; then it dropped into Pepe’s hand, and the dark young man counted out five silver pesos change.

You have too much money for such a worthless one, Don Nacho snapped. If I were your father, I would put you to work in the cheese factory.

Pepe grinned. I don’t like the smell of the vats.

Such a scandal, Don Anselmo told him severely. And your father the maker of the finest cheese on the frontier. Only yesterday I saw a goatherd from the Valley of the Three Marys …

On our side of the line? the mayor asked quickly.

The foreman shrugged. For lost goats there are no lines. But because he was of the Three Marys I could not let him walk Sabinas land without some punishment.

Naturally, Andrés nodded with satisfaction.

So I made the forked sign against the evil eye, for I am a good christian…

And he was a goatherd, Pepe Gonzalez chimed in impatiently. Continue, old one. What did you say to him?

Do not hurry me, do not hurry me. I said to him, ‘Would you like a taste of Don Timotéo’s cheese?’ And I held out a piece of it, very tempting, in my hand. You should have seen his eyes and the way his tongue touched his mouth with wetness.

He took it? Don Nacho demanded, scandalized.

No. He was a good son of his valley. But how those Three Marys unmentionables miss the good cheese of Don Timotéo! And you, worthless one, are too proud to work in such a fine factory.

Pepe shrugged. I tell you I don’t like the smell.

Don Nacho patted Bob’s arm. Let me warn you. This same Pepe Gonzalez, and that fool who calls himself Andrés Treviño, and Porfirio, the carver of wood whom you saw outside, have a talent for wickedness that is beyond belief. Better for you to stay away from them.

He can’t, grinned Pepe. Is he not now a member of the Casino, and that soon to be the finest social club between Monterrey and Torreón?

Such talk, Don Anselmo said, and this poor señor tired from lack of sleep. Better we leave him to his rest.

If you get lonesome, Pepe said mischievously, the Saloon of the Devil’s Laughter is on the next street. There we hold our committee meetings.

Out of here, roared Don Nacho.

The two young men laughed, shook Bob’s hand, and merrily departed, Andrés obviously glad to be free of the mayor’s commanding presence. Bob was sorry to watch them leave. Their friendliness seemed to be free of suspicion and distrust. He forced himself to ask casually, What is wrong with the Valley of the Three Marys that it cannot eat cheese, and where is it?

On the other side of the eastern mountains, said Don Nacho, and when the quarry foreman would have launched into a long explanation, he added, Time enough for you to learn of the feud later. The water in the well is still good. You have only to pull up the bucket. The town gardener tested it for you last night. We now leave you in the peace of God.

The old men bowed formally, shook hands with the ceremony proper for strangers, and went away. Bob carried his valise into the bedroom, started to unpack it, then looked at the dirt and the two dangling suits. He gathered up some towels and soap and quickly shut the case. After he had managed a fairly competent sponge bath, he scraped dry leaves away from one corner of the patio, spread out his raincoat, and lay down on it.

Sleep was heavy on him, but when he tried to sleep, it eluded him, and his mind filled with old memories which he thrust out and away from him. As he sought desperately for release, the image of Candelaria as he had first glimpsed her that morning, the dahlias a pink beauty in her arms, swam into his consciousness, and thinking of her he sank at last into the darkness of true sleep.

By the end of the first work day, the men at the quarry discovered that they had a new type of jefe, a type they had never hitherto known. There had been many quarry masters in the ten years of the quarry’s existence before 1913, when all work had ceased. There had been the martinet German, the casual Irishman, the homesick Englishman, the excitable Frenchman, and, of course, the drunken Italian.

With each new master came the changes. For two weeks the jefe would ride the mountain trails; he would set up what they called La Sistema, the system. There would be much writing of papers and many speeches to the quarry men, especially on the subject of living in caves. But by the end of the two weeks the system would dissolve into the endless procession of slow days and nights. Speeches would be made to the women instead of the men; and bottles of golden cognac or colorless tequila * would take the place of the papers. And Don Anselmo, the foreman, would see that the small red cars, fastened together by an endless chain, the rock-laden downward cars pulling up the empties, somehow reached the train tracks and that the rock was loaded on flatcars to be taken to the cement factory in Monterrey.

Sometimes the jefes would remember to tell Don Anselmo that he was a good foreman, and would present him with a small bottle of liquor. The Italian had even looked with soft eyes on the ripening beauty of Candelaria. On that day Don Anselmo had fastened a block of wood to a tree and had shown the Italian some tricks of knife-throwing, and after that the Italian showed no further interest in Candelaria. That Anselmo, said the Inditos,* was a wise one. Candelaria was worth more than a casual sleeping on an office floor. A man from the village might not be such a rich one, but he would be Candelaria’s husband long after a jefe had forgotten the color of Hidalgo’s mountains. And as for La Sistema, every master was entitled to his two weeks of amusement, but after that, well, the getting of stone from the quarry was a serious business and not to be entrusted to an outlander.

So the quarry men prepared themselves for the breaking in of the new jefe, who was, in himself, curious because he could speak Spanish, which no other quarry master had ever been able to do.

Their blank eyes hiding amusement, they watched Bob gallop up to the mesa the second morning after his arrival. He called the foreman to him.

Good morning, Don Anselmo.

A ripple of movement passed over the waiting crowd. What manner of jefe was this that he should call Anselmo Carvajal Don? The other jefes in their arrogance had never bothered to bescow a title of respect on the Inditos, even though old age demanded it of politeness. New interest came to the men, and they pressed closer as Bob said, You doubtless have a method for taking the rock to the train?

"That is so, jefe."

It is a good method?

There have been no complaints from the cement factory in Monterrey, señor.

Continue it, then, in the old manner. I will watch it, and if I am not pleased we can make changes later. But now I will need five men to help me here.

Don Anselmo, as curious as the rest, waved five men aside and took the others to the quarry; but during the day many, on one pretext or another, had to make little trips to the mesa, Don Anselmo with them, and what they saw amazed them. For the new jefe had ordered a fire, and the precious papers which had been so carefully guarded for seven years were tossed on the blazing wood.

The empty bottles were presented to the wide-eyed audience of children. And as for the women, well, that was the impossible thing. The new jefe gave them not so much as a passing glance as he went about his work. Nor did the audience seem to bother him. The other jefes had threatened all manner of punishment to keep children and old ones from the mesa—with the old ones they had been successful, never with the children. This new jefe accepted their attention without comment save to warn everyone to keep out of the working area. And once when a boy leaped forward with a shout to thrust his hand into the fire and show that even at nine years he was a man and not afraid of pain, the jefe had merely lifted him by the back of the neck and dropped him into the ditch that carried the irrigation water to Hidalgo. The child howled as the icy water flowed over him, and the jefe said mockingly, You call yourself a man, and yet you scream at a drop of water.

All the old ones and the women laughed, and after that none of the children stepped across the line the jefe drew in the dirt.

When the sun was well overhead, the papers had been burned, the fire extinguished with water, and the furniture moved out of the shack. Then the jefe squatted on the ground like anyone else and drew from his pocket the package of food he had brought from the village.

For a long time the people rested in the shade of the mesquite trees, the men eating the food the women brought them, and the jefe listening quietly to the talk of the wise old ones, not once interrupting to show his superior wisdom, but listening with humility and silence as the young should listen to the old. There was talk of rain and crops, for the quarry people depended on the farms of Hidalgo for their food. And after a while there was talk of the Great Revolution and what it would mean to the Inditos, if it meant anything at all, which the old ones doubted; for, as the wisest said, through all the years there had been so many promises, and so many do-nothings. Now the Great Revolution was two years finished, and it, too, seemed to end in do-nothing.

Then at last the old ones were silent, and some of the younger men began to sing. At first the jefe listened to the songs, but when someone started the stirring song of Morelos to which many soldiers had marched in the far-off days of 1812, the jefe surprised everyone by singing also, knowing both words and tune. His deep voice gave a bass to their light tenors, and he sang without effort as men sing who have known a song from childhood:

For a corporal I’d give twenty cents,

For a sergeant I might give fifty.

But for General Morelos

I’d gladly give all my heart.

At the finish he went without pause into the song of The Flea, the children adding their voices to the merriment:

With all the fleas I am most angry,

They bite me when I am in bed.

Ay! How they jump! Ay! How chey leap!

Ay! How they jump! Those wicked little fleas.

All these fleas fill me with terror

For the holes they bore into my skin.

Ay! How they jump! Ay! How they leap!

Ay! How they jump! Those wicked little fleas.

Candelaria, watching him sing, pulled her shawl closer over her head. She had never seen eyes so somberly tragic in a man’s face, and it seemed to her as though, during the music, some of the sadness left him; but it seemed also as though he went away from her into another world where she could not follow. And into her mind came the clear and bitter knowledge that all of her happiness rested in the cup of his hand, but that to him she would never be anything more than a cloud’s shadow on the mountain slope.

He rose, his arms lifted for a deep stretching of his body, More work, friends. The hour of resting is over.

Earlier that morning the men had worked in silence, obedient to his orders, but curious. Now that he had sung with them they felt a greater ease. Secret laughter trembled among them, and words flowed from one to another. One man put the large desk chair on its side and showed how he could leap over it ten times without pause. Expressionless eyes swiveled to the jefe’s face. Bob took a deep breath.

After this, enough of games, he told them. Keeping his feet close together, he made twelve leaps back and forth across the chair, and there was no panting in his chest as he finished. The children mischievously sang the applause music,* and the women and the old ones obediently clapped.

Bob knew that the men were now ready to accept him on trial. He was their jefe. In all things he must be better than they were. This chair jumping was but the beginning of tests that would grow more difficult until they were satisfied that he was competent to lead them. His grandmother’s wisdom flowed into his memory. "And always the patron, the master, must ride with the least fear, throw the longest rope, climb the highest mountain. For is he not the patrón? Bob’s mouth lifted in the slow sideways smile, and he waved his hand towards the shack. Amuse yourself, my children. Storm this castle with fortitude. Make it as though it had never been. The glass from the window and the tin from the roof we will keep. But the boards can be broken up and put in the cooking fires."

The men looked at each other with little curious glances. The laughter passed out of them for the jefe had became a stranger again. To destroy this office was a terrible thing. Was it not the symbol of authority? Surely the mind of a jefe was a matter not understood by common christians.

Bob felt the change in them. His fingers trembled with anger as he unfastened the door staples. Supposing they did want to keep the shack. He was the one who had to spend most of the day in it. What difference did it make what they did or did not want? He was the jefe, he was the outlander, he was the stranger. For a year he would be a stranger, and then he would go away and forget them. Two hundred and fifty American dollars a month in salary. He could easily live on fifty. That left two hundred clear. Twelve times two hundred was twenty-four hundred. The letter from Tommy Eaton was very plain: I tell you we could clean up in South America. With your Spanish and the way you understand these Latins it would be a cinch. And the whole world’s going air-conscious. With me to fly the planes and you to manage the business on the ground, we’ll be set. Of course we have to have capital to start with. But this flying circus I’m with now isn’t bad. Besides what I can borrow, I should have about four thousand saved up by the end of the year if I can keep the wings sewn on my crate. Do you think you could swing at least two thousand by that time?

Yes, the letter was plain, and Tommy Eaton would make a good partner. A little stupid, but the knowledge of airplanes was in his blood and his bones. And a year wasn’t a long time to wait. Twelve months—three hundred and sixty-five days. Oh God, three hundred and sixty-five days of living in these mountains, of constantly proving that he was better than any quarry man, of seeing that endless cars of rocks were turned over to the care of the railroad. He’d be damned if he’d spend those days in a two-by-four shack that shut out the opalescent air and the blue arched sky. The door came loose from the jamb, and he let it fall to the ground. By evening the only reminder of the shack was a patch of hard-packed earth that marked the floor.

Don Anselmo, careful to make no reference to the desecration of the office, rode back to the village with him.

It is in my mind, he told Bob, that you would do well to purchase that horse. Don Fidencio, who keeps the blacksmith shop, has certain nags for hire, but they are of little value. He used the word rocinante for nag, and Bob looked at him curiously.

Is it possible that Don Quixote has come to these mountains? he asked.

Don Quixote, señor? I do not know him. He is perhaps of Monterrey?

No matter. But Rocinante was the name of his horse.

Indeed, señor. Now that is a strange thing. The horse of the young Castillo, Joaquín, you comprehend, not Alejandro, was also named Rocinante. Every day he rode it along the mountain trails. How he could ride, that one! And his horse was the finest of the Castillo blacks. He called it Rocinante for a little joke. And on Sunday mornings, for the sweetheart mass at twelve o’clock, he would ride that horse to the door and make it kneel in honor of the Blessed Virgin. Ay, he took much laughter with him when he left this valley.

Where is he now? Bob asked idly, not really curious.

Dead, señor. The thin lips under the gray mustache closed tightly, as though afraid of giving away too much information. This, more than the words, attracted Bob’s attention. What a strange place Hidalgo was, with its minor mysteries, and its feud with the neighboring valley. Well, it was no concern of Bob Webster’s. But a horse was. He really needed a horse, and perhaps it would be better to buy one. The money problem was an item, but he could always sell it, and if he took good care of it, he might make a little profit. And besides, there should be some compensation for this twelve months’ exile. He had always wanted to own a horse … ever since he had been old enough to comprehend what such an animal was. And his grandmother’s voice came into him again: "It was white, with tail and mane of cream. And when its hoofs struck the ground, sparks flew. I tell you such an animal has never been seen before or since."

Bob said lightly, As you say, this is a fine animal. But it is in my mind to buy a white horse.

Ay, no, señor! Don Anselmo hastily blessed himself. "To bring a white horse into these mountains is not wise. El Caballo Blanco would not like it."

"El Caballo Blanco is dead. You yourself said this yesterday."

Dead he may be in body, but the goatherds often see him on the trails in the moonlight, his hand on his gun, his hat on the back of his head, and his white horse between his knees.

Have you ever seen him?

"With my own eyes, no. But it would take a very brave soul to face his jealous anger. The men like you, señor. They think you will make a good jefe. They would not want to see you with your mind emptied of reason and foolish laughter on your mouth."

A brave soul, Bob repeated thoughtfully. Perhaps a white horse would solve his difficulties with the men. If they saw him riding one without harm they would set no further tests for him, for they would know he was indeed the jefe, afraid not even of ghosts.

But his skeptical mind could not prevent the cold touch of fear within him that was a part of his heritage. Eh, grandmother, he whispered, shall I buy a white horse? And the answer came out of his memory. "When you are grown, young one, you, too, shall own a fine white horse, and the knowledge will console him in purgatory."

Tomorrow I have business in Monterrey, Bob told the foreman. See that the men do their work well, and clear me good blocks of stone for a new office. I will draw you a picture of what I have in mind.

Three afternoons later he sat in his dismal parlor and counted over his money with a grimace. At this rate it would take him longer than twelve months to clear that two thousand dollars, although the horse trader in Monterrey had agreed to buy back the animal within the year. In Bob’s original calculations he had forgotten to count in the saddle, and the dignity of a jefe could not, of course, be lessened by an ordinary saddle. Luckily the harness maker had a real beauty which had been ordered by a general, and, after the manner of generals, casually forgotten.

It was resting on the back of the settee beside him now, and he ran his hand lovingly over it, for he liked the feel of good leather. In the darkened room its burnished red-brown seemed to gleam with an added golden light. The skirts and pommel were decorated with crossbars of stamping, and he was admiring the plain design when a voice said behind him, A very beautiful thing.

He rose hurriedly and turned around. A delicate slender man was standing in the door, his round collar and black clothes revealing his profession. The finely chiselled face under thick silky white hair was like a cameo flushed with life.

The door was open, the priest said tranquilly, his tenor voice clear and resonant. I knocked but you did not hear me. He glanced about him, nodding his head. You have swept well. The Huachichil said that you were very clean. Being dirty, they are great admirers of cleanliness. He sat in an armchair and crossed his knees so that one foot in its thick-soled black shoe swung in answer to some inner rhythm. Before the Conquest most of the Indian tribes were clean. It was a part of their religion. And because it was pagan, the Christian conquerors did not allow them to bathe. Europe had not yet learned the necessity of the bath. He smiled easily, the warmth beginning in his serene blue eyes and spreading to the thin lips. "But I have disturbed you at your work. That was not polite. And in politeness I should have introduced myself. My name is